Drinkin' Beer and Wastin' Bullets
by Galecia
Summary: There was no ploy or trick in her eyes, even if her lips spoke that her hidden desires were no wish of hers, not the life she had sought before meeting them. She was demanded of something she would have previously fought to stop him. She would have never guessed they would trust her, protect her. This band of heroes. ALL AVENGERS. No slash.
1. Prologue

**A/N: Here it goes! The title for this story is inspired by the song of the same name by Luke Bryan. The prologue may seem a little weird at the beginning, but if you stick around it will make sense in later chapters and what it may mean. If there are mistakes of grammar or spelling, please let me know! If you don't care about those types of mistakes, we all win.**

** The plot is already decided, and the last chapter I wrote before anything else so don't worry if there seems to be no action at the beginning, it's coming, I promise.**

** All Avengers are in this. As well as some of my own characters. With that said,**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel.**

* * *

Prologue: Where The Rest Go

God doesn't chase the devil. Not because of some sordid love God has for Lucifer- his fallen angel. His fallen son. No, he does not chase because he cannot change the devil's ways, does not think Lucifer worth of change.

God doesn't chase the devil because God sees the need for an underdog, one who would push mortals to their knees asking forgiveness for their sins committed because of his son. Sins no mortal could willingly strike from their past. God doesn't chase the devil, because he has NEED of a targeted evil so that people see the good in its place.

God doesn't chase the devil.

This does not mean the devil does not seek God…

This does not mean she doesn't seek them _both._ For their warring ways, their half-truths and outright lies in the face of impassive cruelty for their actions _they clash like brutish swords against shields_.

She does not know who to seek, God or the devil, to rest the thirst she has.

She only knows it as a thirst for the knowledge of power, or the knowledge to stop those with too much power in the world. It isn't clear.

The murky depths of her morals are what others use to their advantage.

She is one small star amongst billions that flesh and blood humans habituated with their sky do not pick the right star. The impossible star blending with the rest.

She believes her existence impossible.

Stars are natural- she is _manufactured_.

Who is to say God is merciful when weapons such as herself have been used for decades, and she, an unnatural being created for such desolation in order for one man to claim power over the rest, tried and failed at disposing of those weapons?

God is not merciful… perhaps she'll learn the humans, for all their destruction, are.

Perhaps one band of humans with powers greater than hers can help bring down that one band.

Perhaps Earth's Mightiest Heroes will believe in a manufactured star?

* * *

It felt like dry rain, cold and crisp beneath her fingers. _No_, rain was pure, clean. Wet. Dryness was dirty, dangerous like the desert, sharp.

Her fingers stilled in their movements against the fabric under her. it was too dry, _it hurts. _No, she needed water, been deprived of it, held dry and dirty for too long not to let it control her, make her _crave_ water more than lungs did air. Every pore on her body searched for it, just to stop the pain of skin taught against bone, dry and stagnant.

She needed fluidity, like oceans need the banks and cliffs which contain them. She felt dampness, against her cheek dripping past her ears and into her mouth.

Salt.

Tears.

She needed it, wishing more and more, unknowingly clenching the fabric under calloused hands.

"I think she's awake."

More water. She needs water.

"Water."

"Water?"

Movement to her left, a hand ardently cupping the back of her neck was too constant a pressure for her not to jerk away.

"Woah, Miss, not here to hurt you." Soothing and strong, a voice that commanded respect but kindness. _A trick._

"Do not touch her. Leave her be, Rogers."

The second voice she knew like her own eye colour, eyes snapping open as if that action alone would present the man's visage before her. Or his name could command the same, "Loki?" She bit, inhaling the dry air, winching as it hit the back of her bruised throat. She tasted instead of smelled expensive cologne in the air, new bed sheets, the dim light and the man hovering above her was not the Asgardian she was finding herself _hoping_ for.

She pulled her eyes from where she didn't recall settling them, away from the blond haired man at her elbow holding a glass of water. She had zoned out not from pain, for the dull ache setting into her bones could not be ignored now, but from realizing she didn't know where she stood, what her relation to them was or even _where_ she was.

She only knew who her company was. Rogers, _the man out of time_.

Loki, _prince of Asgard and the destroyer of New York_.

Sights and sounds suddenly came full tilt into her awareness, immediate things first. The smell of water from her left, of metallic blood still coating her clothing and faint hints of iodine and alcohol, _fresh bandages_. There was sound from beyond the lone door across the room, feet shuffling, voices? The lights above, small circles sporadic against the peach coloured ceiling began losing their luster as dawn broke and sunlight filtered through the large windows at the foot of the bed, of the blurred city skyline. Her watering eyes held the outside world's attention too long, she knew.

She could not lock eyes with either man.

She understood where she was.

"_I can't be here_," Her tone made no sense to Steve, almost scared one moment but her eyes remained resilient. His cautionary glance to Loki went unnoticed by both other parties, for the god was looking on their guest with contemplation and a little disbelief at her words.

The girl blinked at Steve, still awkwardly leaning over her with the glass of water.

The door whooshed open, a voice so pompous and recognizable that the girl didn't bother to look over at the billionaire, deciding to look between Steve Rogers and New York.

"I know I have an effect on women who I don't know the names of, but usually they don't end up in my bed this fast."

She noticed he had an annoying mannerism of itching his beard when after a few silent moments she glanced over. He was handsome, but not in a way that lessened her glare up at him, trying to intimidate her way into convincing him she need not be there.

She had hoped to wake somewhere else.

Yet the man was preoccupied. "Enough, Stark." Loki had rolled his eyes, settling back into the cushions of the chair he had been occupying for some time waiting for their "guest" to wake up. Honestly, he was still a little annoyed he'd been on guard duty for so long. Not that Asgardians needed much sleep, but it was a nice feeling drifting into the unknown if only to escape darker thoughts reality brought.

"I'm trying to be nice, Rudolph." Stark looked away, eyes laser pointed on the smirking Trickster to which the girl gave an amusing smirk, looking devilish on her tired face.

"You disobey a god?" She ground out, question seemingly harsh because of her voice, which had broken and sounded lie glass breaking over rock. She rose herself to lean on her elbows, hiding a wince s fabric became too rough for her personal liking.

Loki refrained from rolling his eyes, knowing her game well enough. Get the attention away from her and hope her captors begin to fight so she can escape. Knowing Stark, that wouldn't work well.

Tony blinked down, "Uh, yes. I do."

Through her teeth, while adjusting her position, said, "At least someone will,"

Loki rose a questioning if not amused brow but let it slide for reasons beyond Stark and Rogers.

"Rogers, if you would," The god gestured a slender hand to the water glass, knowing even though her eyes weren't tracking it overtly, she was watching.

"Do you two know each other in the biblical sense?" Tony led, hoping that would get a rise out of the girl to which SHEILD hadn't provided a name when they unceremoniously dropped her off on his doorstep, or Loki whom seemed to know, as per usual, more than they did about the situation. More than they did about the girl if his intrusive glances were anything to go by.

Loki tilted his head to the side, obviously confused.

"No," She deadpanned between gulps, glad that the super-soldier had resigned to sitting in the chair beside Loki to give her space. _As gentlemanly as they say_, were her thoughts. How much dare she give away?

She knew what had happened, and in the end did not hide this from them, instead deciding that shock would break the two men out of the ensuing argument about Bibles and how Loki had not heard of such a book of tales. "SHIELD brought me here." Her statement rebounded in the dead silence, and Tony raised both eyebrows.

"So, enemy or ally?"

"Why not both?" It came too quick to her lips, she knew. Damn, so much for playing it cool and collected.

Tony nodded, impressed that this girl, whoever she was, put on a mask of indifference that rivaled Natasha.

SHIELD had given the orders that the Avengers needed to protect this girl. Either that meant protect her from outsiders, maybe Doom as he was their biggest problem at the moment, or protect the public from her.

Either way, Tony Stark was not pleased with SHEILD or Fury and their need to drop impromptu missions and demands on the Avengers.

Not even the perfect Captain America liked his vacations plans getting squashed.

Loki made a sound in the back of his throat, apparently not pleased that Tony was staring the girl down.

"Right," Tony stood but made no other moves. "JARVIS?"

"_Sir_?"

Her eyes didn't seem shocked a disembodied voice was answering. Perhaps she was an agent of SHIELD? No, Fury would have mentioned. Actually, when Tony further thought about it, he wouldn't have. Idiotic pirates and their secrets having secrets.

"Inform the rest of the Scooby gang our guest is awake. Send them up."

"_As you wish."_

Steve leaned over and little, "Would you like more water?"

She nodded and blindly handed him the cup, eyes tracking Loki.

"So, what's your name?"

"SHIELD didn't tell you?"

"No."

Her snarky grin got a little wider. "Then who's to say _I_ will?"

Perhaps no one had disobeyed Tony Stark much either, for his face was priceless and comical, and she decided that there could have been worst places for SHIELD to drop her off.

* * *

**A/N: Reviews would be nice! They allow me to see if and where I went wrong, and I rely on you all for feedback if you could! **

**Hope you enjoyed! -G**


	2. How Long Are Your Shadows?

**A/N: Okay so I noticed a lot of spelling mistakes in the last chapter. I was more careful with this one. This chapter jumps along time a little bit but not too much. Enjoy! This update was sooner than expected because of late night ideas. The updates will be more weekly and regular than this I promise!**

Chapter 1: How Long Are Your Shadows?

Really, there wasn't a place on Asgard or Migard he was safe. Between Rogers breaking Stark's equipment (it was hard to ignore when those two fought so tersely) and his brother overbearing in his concern on how he was fairing with getting along with the Avengers, "Thor, how do you think it is going? Horribly." Loki was not the perfect candidate or volunteer to watch over their new guest.

Two years since his attempted reign over Midgard. Two years of tentative communication that had somehow pulled "earth's mightiest heroes" into more of acquaintances than enemies but not quite friends. It did not help matters that Stark had locked Loki in the reinforced medical bay of Stark Tower for the first month of his return. It did not help that Thor agreed, arguing that "Our friends would feel more at ease with you safe." Tony just smirked like he had won and enjoyed taunting Loki.

Loki was content to keep the friendships at a distance.

So he questioned the sanity of the man when Nick Fury had brought them a present in the form of a human girl, with no name or identifying features of any kind, and had requested- demanded- the Avengers keep her safe for the foreseeable future.

SHIELD pulled their vanishing act once again, with the team dumbstruck and standing in Stark's lounge looking at the girl Thor had placed delicately on the couch as if she were a doll.

* * *

_They were silent, staring objectively at the situation and the parcel they'd suddenly been burdened with. Stark Tower was expansive enough that space was in excess- so that was not the perceived problem. No, it was because SHIELD have overstepped their bounds finally, and tony was a little miffed, hell he was pissed, that Fury decided his house was a prison. A shelter._

_First Fury and Thor had thrust Loki into their midst, ensuring his magic was bound by Odin and he could do no harm. _

_Little by little Loki had earned a delicate trust from each Avenger, with Clint the exception for good reason. Tony didn't even want to start thinking on that or why Loki was intrusively looking at the unknown girl with renewed interest since they'd all fallen silent after their tirades about SHIELD and their protocols._

_Natasha was the first voice of reason, having seated herself at the foot of the couch near the girl's feet. Her eyes were locked on Pepper, "Is there anywhere we can house her… securely?" _

_Natasha had been living at the tower for a few months, the last of them to admit it was easier than going to their respective apartments of living in the barracks at SHIELD all the time. Even the two trained assassins, who were basically SHIELDS puppets, as far as one Man of Iron was concerned, knew the upsides of free rent and food. Still, Natasha had only explored certain floors of the Tower- and like the rest was lost on what Stark could offer in terms of "housing" for an honoured guest. _

_The girl certainly looked like she needed a bed and a bath. She was covered in bruising, seemingly webbing from somewhere underneath her t shirt and the space between her pants and shirt hem. It was like someone had used a kindergarten stamp to mar her, it looked unnatural against the pale skin. _

_Pepper was answering Natasha, both the ladies' voices whisper-soft as the only speakers in the room. Tony could tell Bruce was processing the girl's injuries, the ones that could be seen along her arms and one of her cheeks held a light gash that had crusted in blood. _

_"… there's some spare rooms on the floor below us, I'm sure JARVIS could monitor her."_

_As if the AI had been listening the entire time, and no one put it past him, JARVIS spoke in a soft tone, volume turned down as if he also preferred not to wake their new member. _"Miss. Potts, there are twenty-three available rooms on the three floors below and one above. There are numerous beds in on the medical floor. Would you prefer to leave the young girl in the medical wing?"

_Perhaps JARVIS had been scanning life signs and vitals, because Tony thought he noted a hint of concern for a second. _

_Bruce negated that option. "No, if she wakes up somewhere more comfortable she may be willing to tell us what's going on. Shoving her in a hospital room won't help." He was holding his glasses in one hand, rubbing his forehead with the other._

_Pepper looked on and met eyes with them all. "Are we sure she's not dangerous?"_

_"Does she look dangerous?" Tony countered, and he could swear back to front that Loki grinned at that before sliding his face into neutral once more. The gods eyes hadn't left the girl for the duration, standing beside his brother with arms folded in deep thought._

_It looked like Loki was searching the girl's features for something familiar and when he found nothing, searched again as if he had seen a wisp of a shadow of something recognizable._

_Only thought she looked like every woman, but there was something off. Her face as too blank, as if dead and there was no grip of reality, no twinge that even indicated life. Usually when one was in a deep sleep, their eyes moved back and forth, and even if they were on the cusp of consciousness, there were tweaks of facial muscles._

_She hadn't moved an inch from what Tony could tell._

_Perhaps Loki had picked up on the unnaturalness of the girl through the blood and gruesome state of her and was searching for a reason _why.

_"Neither do I when I sleep," Natasha levelled, tone light but her words were not._

_Tony, ever the sensitive one, turned to Clint, "Do you watch her when she sleeps, Robin Hood? Even I think that's-"his words were cut off by a pillow landing square against his chest, thrown by Clint so fast Tony gave a yelp of surprise._

_They had to remain wary. It was disconcerting that SHIELD hadn't told them anything past the perfunctory story of "You are employed by us, this is your task, and do it well" rubbish like before._

_Even before, they'd always been given reasons if not details. "Well, put her in the first empty room you can find. She's going to stain the couch."_

_"I'm going to report in, see what I can dig up." Clint, who'd been too-silent, finally spoke up and twisted on his heel to leave. Natasha wordlessly followed._

_Pepper mentioned she had to get back to Stark Industries, leaving instructions to call her when the poor girl woke up. She too, left; knowing there wasn't much to be done until the girl woke up and could aid their understanding._

_Steve, who had been sitting on a chair with his chin in his clasped hands for the last half hour, cleared his throat. "Don't you think we should clean her up? I mean-"_

_"Look around Boy Scout, all the girls have gone. Unless," Tony shrugged, walking around to the bar to pour himself some type of alcoholic drink as he had when Loki was dropped on them, as he does when he interacts with Loki _at all_. "You want to clean her up yourself? Wouldn't that ruin your innocent charm?"_

_Steve stood, flushed, and left the lounge in a huff._

_Loki tapped his fingers against the back of the couch. "Stark, as much as I value your input," his voice dripped heavy sarcasm so much that it sounded sincere, "I value your silence on the matter more. SHIELD obviously desires us to keep this woman safe, and that means in keeping with what you call Human Rights," Loki paused, "We cannot keep her in this state for long."_

_There was something under his tone that Tony could not place. It was a new side of Loki, not quite caring but considerate of anyone except himself. During the Trickster's stay, they had gotten to know Loki before the powerful effects of the Tesseract and its poisonous nature on Loki's mind. Suffice it to say, Loki hadn't been himself since falling off of the Bifrost into the Void- as Thor had put told them._

_Now, Thor was looking at Loki as if glimpsing his brother for the first time in years._

_Slowly, Thor nodded, uncrossing his arms. "My brother is right, we must provide for this woman. Where do you want to keep her?"_

_Tony waved a dismissive hand. "Find an empty bedroom. Loki, since you seem to," here Tony made a fake gagging noise, "care about her well-being, you get first watch. Nat is right," a guarded look passed over his face, as if realizing the reality had come down too fast, "We can't be sure she isn't a threat." After all, Fury expressly said that they all had duty over her for the time-being. It was a little much, if you were to be rational, for someone who was as harmless as a housefly. That, or someone wanted her really badly._

_"I'll be in the lab. JARVIS? Alert me when she wakes up or if Loki tries anything."_

_"_Of course, Sir."

_A few minutes of pensive silence as Thor and Loki transported the unconscious girl to the first room on the floor below before Loki said, "One year, and Stark still does not trust I will not behave, like I am some child."_

_"It has been thousands of years, and I still believe you capable of 'trying something'." Thor's broad grin lit the darkened room even before Loki flicked on the dimmer. "You have also tried taking over their home. Remember when Sif did not speak to you for nearly a decade because you dyed her skin a horrid pink?"_

_Loki let his smirk widen as he turned down the bedcovers to allow Thor to place his burden into the bed._

_"Yes. Truly that was a well-played prank, you must admit."_

_"Who do you believe her to be?" Thor stood back, appraising the girl. Her hair was dark and light, two tones perfectly blended like the beige, golden sheets almost metallic beside her skin. They had not seen the colour of her eyes, but if Thor were to hazard a guess, they would be unimpressive. Something about screamed ordinary, a human that could blend in with a crowd._

_Such as Lady Natasha, Thor mused as he inspected the girl closer. Her face was round but angular, the high planes of her cheekbones lent degrees of softness to her slightly parted lips._

_She was pretty, but unexceptional. _

_Loki deigned an answer, and instead posed a question. "Who does SHIELD believe her to be?"_

_"Loki, what troubles you?"_

_"When did you become the perceptive one?"_

_"Loki." The sigh that escaped his lips was not impatient, but resolved as only years upon years of experience with his brother could lend. They stood on opposite sides of the bed, between them the girl still slumbered as if not even a rumble of thunder could disturb her._

_Only her breathing filled the room until Loki gave in to Thor's pointed and expectant look, and when had it become so easy for Thor to dig into Loki's will and break it like a sheet of thin ice?_

_"I cannot be sure."_

* * *

Loki paused in his visual examination of the sleeping mortal. Thor had been gone a few hours, leaving his younger brother to sit and watch over the girl lie she was an invalid that would die at a moment's notice.

She was pale, yes, and covered in blood both her own and another parties'. Yet there was an inert strength to her, seemingly manufactured, although Loki could not be sure as his time with mortals had been limited. There it stood, flush against her skin like an unnatural sheen of sweat lingering for a split second and gone in an eye-blink.

Loki stood, inching closer.

He knew this woman, something about her appearance and the way she had spoken earlier didn't feel correct somehow. Lie her lines had been rehearsed, automatic.

Her breathing levelled, a tranquil sounds of hot air rushing in and out between her lips. No, he imagined it. She was perfectly well, and his assumptions were getting the better of him in his boredom of watching a mortal sleep.

Really, they were so very tiring and boring, it was a wonder why he wanted to rule them in the first place.

* * *

_Silently undoing the straps and slipping off her heels, she crouched behind the glossy white counter, not losing track of each footstep she heard echoing throughout the lab. Three steps to her left she was at the wall, eight steps back there was a hallway. After that, one hundred and eighteen hurried steps until the outer door and then she would be done. She would have escaped._

_Except the dress she wore didn't allow much movement, like it was too tight and hard, attached by the seams too constrictive as if she had been sewn into it, leaving no room for muscles or skin to move about._

_She slipped off the white and pink cotton slip, thanking her stars that shed remembered to wear the black skin tight uniform, a rubbery material, and hidden knife in its holster tight against her thigh._

_The steps stopped, and the man's breathing became erratic before he spoke with a voice that filled the room tenfold until her ears popped. "Where did you go you little bitch?"_

_Well that was very rude of him. _

_She had orders not to harm the personnel. She had orders._

_Disobeying those orders was what got her into this situation in the first place, with no shoes and more blood on her ruined dress than she remembered being there in the first place._

_Wait, when had she stabbed someone? Her knife, as she removed it from its slick black case, was pristine, glinting in the fluorescent light of the lab._

_She was uninjured. Old scars, nothing more._

_Nothing more._

_"You are nothing more than a tool. A way for me to keep an eye on the world outside. Remember who made you; wherever you are I can find you."_

_Confusion set in, too subtle still for her mind to find that easy resting place between the urge to fight of run for her own life. _

_She sat still under the desk, white and steel tiles in patterns around her spinning too quick for her to crawl over them. Her body ached, the bruises on her skin were just memories, oh how she wished to God they were memories._

_He was speaking again. "Escape and I will find you. Escape and you will be in danger, they will not think twice about dismembering you."_

_They? _

_A bolt of electricity charge the air, floor slamming into her side, arm outstretched from under the protective cover of the desk._

_"There you are." A cloaked figure loomed overhead, and she jerked in a nonstop motion, hands splayed flat against the tile at her back, fingers as cold and metallic as the tiles she scratched._

* * *

Bolting upright, hands fretting over her features like claws, she only felt skin, soft, pliant flesh covered every inch of her body and she _breathed_.

Her lungs constricted painfully trying to catch up to the moments before waking where she could not breathe, as if a vital piece was missing from her chest and her heart was no longer beating.

A hand to her chest, and her eyes closed in relief before slowly blinking open.

She was alone, the comforter crumpled behind her in a mass of tangled gold, the lighter toned beige sheets on the floor by her feet where they'd swung over in an attempt to run out of her nightmare.

The sky outside was inky blue, broken only by intermittent dots of light from towers and high-rises too short to reach the height of the tower she was in. The bedside lamp glowed enough that there was a brief reflection in the wide windows.

Half of her was shadow, the other bathed in lamplight.

Looking upon her reflection she noticed someone had cleaned blood from her front and her face, and she knew they'd changed her clothes. There was a bandage wrapped around her upper arm beneath the short sleeve of the shirt.

She began wondering why she was alone when a disembodied voice surrounded her, permeating her rapid thoughts and somehow calming.

"_Miss?"_

"Uh, yes?"

"_Mr. Stark requests your presence in the kitchen."_

"Am I right to guess you're going to take me there?"

"_No, Agent Romanoff is at your door. Shall I let her in?"_

"More your house than mine. Go ahead."

The door to her right swooshed open, and a redheaded woman in jeans and a dark black hoodie walked in gracefully. It was the same woman that had come to see her the day before, one of the _Scoody gang._

"Here to take me to your leader?" she glibly greeted before the agent could open her mouth.

Natasha cocked her head; face a perfect mask of indifference and intrigue. "Don't let Stark hear you say he's the leader. We'd never live it down." She pursed her lips, perhaps trying to smile or hiding an entirely more base emotion, the girl wasn't sure.

There was a question in Natasha's eyes that couldn't go unnoticed, and whether it was purposeful or not did not matter.

"I'm not with SHIELD, if that's what you're wondering over there." She said as she got up, testing her balance and ignoring the spinning of her vision or the sudden feeling of nausea.

"Dr. Banner said you might have a concussion."

No acknowledgement of her saying she wasn't with SHIELD, Agent Romanoff just stood with her hands clasped behind her back, casual looking if not intimidating.

"Why am I allowed to roam free?"

"You'll have to follow me to find out." It was cryptic and a little off-putting, and that could be the agent's intention to keep her in line. "Do you know why Fury gave you over to us?"

They had stepped into the carpeted hallway, her bare feet feeling every scratch of the soft, pilled material. There was an elevator at the end and what she assumed they were heading towards.

"I assume it was for protection."

Natasha did not dismiss the wording_, not my own protection_, but just simply _protection._

"That's what we were told." The building caution in her tone almost made the girl smirk. It was getting easier to mess around with these people.

The sobering thought that messing with them wouldn't held her case stopped her dead in her tracks before they reached the elevator, and the sudden cease of movement made the fibers of the carpet scratch her bare feet. It was not a pleasant feeling. She winced, unable to his her discomfort to the agent.

"Is something wrong? We can find you later if you need more rest." Natasha found herself saying. Truly she didn't know what the girl was capable of, but in those dull brown eyes that reflected almost no light, Natasha saw real pain.

The girl hitched her breathing.

She didn't want anyone to _find_ her then or later. She did not want to sleep if it meant she would wake up fearing her heart had stopped for some unknown cause.

"No, the sooner I tell you all everything I _don't know_, the sooner I can leave."

_She knows more than she lets on,_ were Natasha's real thoughts even though she said differently as they walked into the elevator.

Clint was due to check in with them within the hour, Natasha just hoped he knew something useful.

**A/N: Okay, that was a little longer than anticipated. So next, the mystery girl meets all of the Avengers and Clint reveals some "not-so-stellar" news and the plot will pick up very soon! Reviews mean my muse will generate some FrostIron in the next chapter!**

**Also, if her flashback seems a little out-of-place, good! It was my intention, because she doesn't really understand it either. **


	3. Continue Scanning

**A/N: So I have read and re-read this chapter and am kind of, sort of happy with it. I'm happy with the plot, and I think tonight I'll end up posting two chapters! Anyway, Enjoy! Also, realized i had left an important part out of the last two updates so I shall add it here:**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Avengers or Marvel, or any if it's characters. All I own is the plot to this story and the OC. **

**Also, you get to find out her "name". **

* * *

"Nada. I found zero Intel on who this broad is." Clint began before the others could harangue him with the millions of questions the archer could see plain as day in their eyes. His words hung in the silence until he sat in their semi-circle around the kitchen counter.

Surprisingly, Bruce was the first to ask, "Does she remind you of anyone?"

"Got that feeling too did ya?" Clint was beyond weary from his hours trying to hack and hide for information from his own employers. First he had gone to Fury. Bad idea, because all he said was it was being handled and Clint's orders were clear.

_Clear as mud, sir._ Was his muttered reply before Fury's silence was the agent's dismissal.

Loki had a hand against his lips, Thor brought attention to it. "Something to add, brother?"

As if the floodgates had opened waiting for someone to acknowledge he suspected something, Loki shrugged a shoulder. "Do not think I am concerned," his pointed glare at Tony only lasted a heartbeat, but the raised eyebrow remained, speaking with an air of passivity, "but if we do not figure out who she is sooner than later, there may not be a later for her to divulge whatever secrets she is surely keeping."

Natasha leaned forward on the counter, looking past a scowling Steve who had his eyes set on a napkin holder. "What do you mean?"

"He means JARVIS has been tracking her vitals and it doesn't look great." Tony supplied, earning him another glare from the god. He smirked back. "Sorry, did you think I wouldn't notice you hacking JARVIS? I knew I'd regret the day I allowed you access to my labs."

"Come now, Stark, if it weren't for my frequent suggestions, you'd be no closer to solving that equation for your suit to know the difference between your nightmares and a real life-or-death situation."

Pepper shifted but remained silent, eyes watching the two over her coffee.

Bruce waved a hand. "Hello? Bigger problems. What about her vitals, Tony?"

"Glad you asked buddy. JARVIS?"

_"Sir?"_

"Pull up the screen with Girl Interrupteds' readings since she arrived."

_"On screen now, Sir."_

All eyes turned and stools scraped as the more experienced veterans of medicine and its diagnostics stood to walk closer.

Loki joined Bruce and Tony at the screen. "This is what is most concerning," he indicated a dip, dangerously low, for a period of about three hours before its steady climb to normal.

"Is that when she was asleep?"

"Seems so. Most likely her body was strained from injury and was repairing itself."

"So this dip was a few hours ago?" Bruce widened the graph, all of them seeing a lower dip below the degree line, but it had spiked higher than normal at the end before levelling.

"That was the minutes before she woke." Tony realized with a huff of hot air. It made no sense. She was all over the place.

"JARVIS? Give us her current condition."

A graph similar to the still frames popped up against the steel gray wall of Tony's kitchen. The line moved steadily before dipping low and slow at a moment's notice, stabilizing and then spiking before returning to its resting rate.

"Looks like her heartbeat." Pepper interjected.

"No... This is baseline. Heartbeat, oxygenation, brain activity and blood cell count."

As if the mysterious girl knew she was the subject of their breakfast conversation, the line dipped again, but a green line stayed in its place. "That green is brain activity. It's constant for now. Everything else just plummeted."

JARVIS stopped the live-stream and an image came up. It was the girl, awake and wide eyed.

_"Sir, the young Miss is awake."_

"Thanks, J. Nat?" Tony turned to the assassin, but no words were necessary. She was up and out into the hall, dragging her fingers through her hair as she went, trying to brush the curls into order.

"Inform our guest her presence is needed _toute suite_ in the kitchen."

_"Yes Sir."_

"Leave the feed up."

_"Of course."_

During this time, Loki couldn't help but watch and wonder why the girl had clawed at her face and body upon waking. Pepper had watched as well, heart torn that such a sweet looking girl seemed so lost and used to withdrawing. Pepper knew the look of someone hiding from the world, her eyes flicking to stare at Tony's back.

"Tony."

"Mmm," he was toying with scans, selecting different ones for JARVIS to complete on the girl as she and Nat spoke on the screen, the sound muted for a little privacy.

Tony was suspicious but human; the least he could do was give her freedom of speech.

It looked like she was bringing out Natasha's genuine smile, but Tony's attention was divided, so it could have been imagined.

"I'm going to get her some better clothes." Pepper turned to put her mug in the sink and by the time she turned back, Tony gave her a knowing look.

He pointed out that, "She has clothing."

"Your old t-shirts and sweatpants are too big for her, and mine and Natasha's clothes will be too long. Please. I will feel useless otherwise."

Loki, sensing one of Tony's illogical rants, gave Pepper his most charming and genuine smile. "That is kind of you, Lady Pepper. I'm sure it will be appreciated," his sly sideways glance was obvious.

Bruce ignored them both.

Clint stood. "I'll walk her down to the garage if you're worried about safety. God knows if SHIELD wants us to protect her cause of an outside threat."

On their way out, Tony heard Pepper ask Clint how his friend at SHIELD was fairing with her promotion.

The smile in Clint's reply was heartfelt. Tony had to give it to Pepper, she was sure interested in others welfare.

They watched the screen as Natasha led the girl towards the elevator, and they'd all flinched when the girl faltered, almost falling flat on her behind.

"I wonder what she went through to have that look."

"What are you talking about?" Tony threw over his shoulder to Steve.

"The haunted soldiers look. Like she's seeing something entirely different than what we are."

Loki mused on Steve's assumption and instead replaced it for his own. She was certainly seeing something else, perhaps blank space, for the unnatural glint in her eye as shed looked up at Natasha wasn't a searching look.

It was scanning.

* * *

She was not the type you'd find at grocers, or walking down the sidewalk. It would be a miracle to pick her out of a larger crowd of more than a handful of people, such were her chameleon qualities. It reminded Natasha of a man she used to know- bendable and could adapt into anyone he wished, could act any part that was set on him by his bosses. He was a dangerous man, always on the cusp of impropriety but never straying too far to lose his charming quality.

Much like Loki.

This girl was no different. A trained spy, assassin, or a regular woman who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Unlikely to all- which made Natasha more suspicious as the elevator doors opened and she led their nameless companion towards the multitude of voices and clinking silverware that was the kitchen.

"Okay, since calling you 'hey you,' or 'girl' is not acceptable, what's your name?"

Tony Stark wasn't one for niceties, especially on days such as this when his brows were furrowed and the hard set of his jaw spoke of exhaustion and possible more than a few sequential sleepless nights.

Steve, as the vision of a good morning in a simple plaid button up and jeans cut just right, knew how to great a lady no matter the circumstance. "Good morning. Sleep well?"

Stark was used to being talked over in situations others worried he'd get out of hand in. So he let the Captain command the floor while he pulled files up on his personal laptop.

It was when Loki joined their amiable conversation about sleeping arrangements that Tony stopped his eyes from roaming the screen. Still he didn't move more than essential muscles to keep up his charade of perusing his files.

"I think Ms. Potts ventured to find you better sleeping garments." Loki hand made a wide gesture at the old Led Zeppelin t-shirt that was far too big on her.

Steve handed the girl a mug of coffee, and then blushed. "Sorry, do you drink coffee?"

"Of course I do. Otherwise I'm a zombie." Her laugh was shallow and forced, but it was a try and Steve chalked it up to a win in their efforts in making her feel safe with them.

"Yes, I know of a certain man who is a zombie if he gets a restful night's sleep or occupies himself with other… pastimes. He is always in need of coffee." Loki coyly smirked in the general direction of Stark, passing by on his way to help Thor with a tea kettle that was stubbornly not whistling fast enough for his brothers' liking.

Stark mocked a silent laugh.

Steve cleared his throat, eyebrows incrementally returning to a vicinity someplace above his eyes. "So, _do you_ have a name, Miss?"

"Yes, but would telling you mean you'd stop calling me that? I kinda enjoy it."

The flirting wasn't flirting when the Captain had no clue it was flirting. Tony decided enough was enough and the poor man needed to be rescued from her vice grip.

"Okay, enough with the stalling. Name? First, last, middle, nickname, anything. Even if it's fake. _Something_ before Steve here blows a gasket."

The girl recovered her falling smile, putting just enough sincerity behind it not to look drab against her features. "Anna is fine."

"Is that your real name?" Natasha piped up between bites of her waffles Loki had graciously made before any of them had woken the hour previously. She had slathered enough butter and syrup on them to kill a cow, enough to hide the taste of burnt edges and too much cinnamon. Suffice to say, princes of Asgard were not welcome in the Stark kitchen very much.

Loki pretended not to notice Nat's ruining of his laborious attempt at breakfast.

"No. That's just what you can call me."

Behind Tony's computer screen, JARVIS was searching for the name _Anna_ in SHIELDS database for anything untoward or that set off warning bells.

Tony slapped the screen closed, knowing his AI would alert one of them as soon as there was something to be found. "So, Anna, up for a tour?"

"Before that, Anna," Bruce turned to the girl, hoping that since shed given a name she'd be open to other fact-finding inquiries. "Mind if I do some tests? To make sure you're healthy and there are no side effects to whatever happened to you."

There was a steel glint in her eye, passing of the light that hit her iris oddly, turning the brown murky depths metallic. "I know what happened to me. And I assure you, Dr. Banner, I'm well."

The unexpectedness of her tone broke the small conversation Loki and Thor had been squabbling about over the kettle, and what Natasha had been discussing with Clint off to the side near the large windows.

"Sorry. But I'm fine. Excuse me, I'm just tired."

So tired to forget that she had long finished her coffee but was taking the mug back to her room with her, griping it so tight her knuckles were white and strained.

Tony traded looks with Loki; both had apparently noticed the same about Anna.

Anna looked anything but tired, and she was confused for a split second before backing out and away, as if chastising herself and wondering why she had rudely spoken to a man only trying to help her.

Loki began suspecting his fears were well rooted; his theories too close to the mark for them to remain an impassive nagging suspicion.

"Stark, may I speak with you privately?"

"Yeah, Rudolph, you read my mind."

Steve wondered how those two did it, since they weren't exactly friends, but seemed to emanate each other's passing thoughts and ideas so that many times he had passed the lab, the two of them would be working silently together. Bruce would usually be there, working alongside, but it seemed Tony and Loki were the only two out of three geniuses that had cracked the code on mind reading.

Steve rolled his eyes as he watched the two go down the hall only to have a petty fight about why Loki's equation the other day was no better than Starks original.

"By brother is fond of Tony." Thor set a large bowl full of oatmeal on the island counter, having finally brought the water to boiling. "It's seldom he shares his insight with me," Thor didn't sound dejected or disappointed that was their reality, but glad. Happy his brother had found one of the Avengers he could connect with, even if it was on a purely intellectual basis.

Bruce hummed in agreement, digging into his pieces of toast that had grown cold by then.

Natasha came up to the boys. "Who wants to join Clint and I in a little side mission, of sorts."

Dubious looked were exchanged. "Lady Natasha, what have you in mind?"

"Quite a lot." Her smile could put the stairs to shame and send the darkest night quivering in fear.

* * *

**A/N: So, what did you think? Review please!**

**Next chapter: the plot thickens and some things are revealed that may explain a lot. If you have any, well, suspicions about where this story is going, PM me your thoughts!**


	4. I Fear Endlessness

**A/N: So I am pretty happy with this chapter, only because there's a little more insight into "Anna". **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or Avengers in any way, shape or form.**

* * *

Chapter Four: I Fear Endlessness

She was so tired of seeing straight. No matter how tight her eyes clenched and her breathing quickened, she could not get the patterns of the ceiling lights and their perfect straightness from her minds eyes.

Why did it bother her so? Her memories of the days leading up her to waking in Stark Tower were a wreckage of scattered words and images. She would see the reflection of the night sky in the window glass and would think she hadn't seen daylight in so long because she'd cried at seeing the sunrise. She enjoyed it too much that she had stood outside on the balcony almost all night in the autumn cold and hadn't been freezing.

She could stare, unblinking, for five minutes and still her eyes would not itch or tear up from the constant exposure to air.

There was something fundamentally wrong, she knew, and feared if she closed her eyes, the endless black of sleep would claim her for its own and scrounge up her worst nightmares.

It scared her that the only nightmare she remembers having in her entire life was the one from the night previous. She couldn't remember dreaming anything beyond that.

Had it been a dream?

She knew she couldn't fend off sleep for an eternity as much as she wished for that ability.

_"Miss. Anna?"_

"Yeah, weird automated voice?" weird automated voice she was a little fond of. In some ways she wished to sound as emotionless as JARVIS, the Stark personal assistant and keeper.

She wished she had a keeper. She wished she remembered more than the essential bits and pieces of her life.

_"Ms. Potts wonders if you would allow her entry."_

_I remember and know everything they seem to ask… but do not know the answers to my own questions_. "JARVIS?"

_"Yes?"_

"Ms. Potts can come in."

She didn't know why she was being given a choice who to let into her room, and who she dared risk sending away. Why was Stark giving her that power of choice?

The door swooshed open, reminding her again of air being pushed in a sigh between clenched teeth, or the sound of a hydraulic hose disengaging.

Now that was an odd connection to make.

"… hope these are alright. I guessed your size. Just essentials and things that might make your stay more enjoyable. The girl at the department store was very helpful, and I had to guess what colours you'd prefer so I played it safe with pastels. If none of it fits-"

"Ms. Potts?"

"Please, call me Pepper."

"Pepper… everything's fine. Thank you."

Her appreciation stopped Pepper in her tracks, between pulling out a sweater and opening the drawers beneath the vanity against one wall.

"You're very welcome. I know how intimidating those guys can be. I remember meeting them for the first time, but, then again I had the advantage of already knowing Tony and Natasha and-"

"You speak a lot when you're nervous, huh?"

Pepper didn't expect Anna to be smiling at her through the mirrors reflection. "Is it too noticeable?" she chuckled lightly, softly, as if being any louder than her quiet rant had been would disrupt the air of cordiality.

Anna stood, helping Pepper remove the clothes from the bags and thin wrapping material that crinkled sweetly beneath her touch. "These are nice. I don't think I've ever had such nice clothes."

_She was naked, exposed like raw wires without the rubber casing, lying there on the table fearing that he'd be so angry at her escape. _

"Anna?"

She was gripping the dresser, and coming back to herself released her death-grip and gave a cursory smile to the purchases littering the bed and dresser.

"I'm sorry; I'm still a little weak." She sat beside a box, and on opening the lid –a distraction for herself and so the older woman didn't notice her hand shaking- took out a pair of flat black shoes not too extravagant but nice, simple.

"Please don't apologize." Pepper stressed, sitting so the shoe box lay between them on the soft sheets. "Why don't I come back later with dinner?" her hands rested in her lap, and Anna found her eyes drawn to them briefly before meeting the woman's kind eyes.

"Actually… if it's okay, I thought I'd go find Dr. Banner. He offered to do some tests and I was rude to brush him off earlier." She hoped the shake and lilt in her voice went unnoticed. Why was she suddenly dizzy? Nothing felt off, perhaps it _wasn't_ a lie when she said she was still weak. Shed meant it to be one, just to get pepper to stop appraising her like a poor urchin in need of a home.

She had a home as far as she was concerned, and it was a long way from Ney York.

"Would you like me to show you the way?"

Unlike her unsure attitude about this woman of a few moments before, Anna did not try and hide her gratitude as she whispered guiltily, "That'd be nice, thank you Pepper."

* * *

Bruce calibrated the sensors for differences in body heat so that no matter how minimal the changes, JARVIS would be able to detect anomalies from each of the eight essential pinpoints on Anna's body. Tony stood beside him, both ignoring the blaring rock music that Stark insisted helped the intellectual and creative processes need for all projects he undertook.

Bruce had learned the year before to get used to it. He suspected at first it was to shock him into having the Other Guy personally sign Starks lab's floor with dents, but it hadn't worked.

As the song switched over, Tony and Bruce decided to also scan Anna for gamma radiation and traces similar to the waves Loki used to give off when his magic would flare.

"Want to go all out and add specific brainwave activity?"

Bruce knew Tony was just messing around now, but it technically wouldn't hurt…

"So, everyone has an opinion on who this Anna is. You've been uncharacteristically silent." Bruce raised voice over the music drowned out his typing as he coded for specific brainwaves. Tony gave a knowing smirk to what his "science buddy" was doing but it went without comment.

"I dunno. Everything just seems wrong, you know? Why would SHIELD drop her off to us? Why even bother? There's no news reports of a huge fight or of Doom or any of the other nasty's we've tangled with, so… I just don't see the point and I don't think Anna does either."

"It is weird she looked like shed been in some stand-off and there haven't been reports of it by the press of SHIELD for that matter."

The music cut off and Bruce realized he'd been shouting, lowering his voice a few decibels, added, "Maybe it was a classified mission gone wrong?"

"Don't you think the spy twins would know about it, then?"

_"Sir, I am sorry to interrupt, but Ms. Potts and Miss. Anna are on their way to the medical wing to see you, Dr. Banner."_

A quick glance at his screen showed no physical distress for either pepper or Ana, so Bruce shut off the screens and grabbed his tablet from the nearby workbench. "See ya Tony, I have a patient."

"Yeah."

Bruce exited, Tony turned back to his workbench where a new prototype for his suit laid, all open wires and exposed circuits.

* * *

The machine whirred to life, sounds blending together round her encased body like in a barrel falling deep within the booming waters of Niagara Falls.

Over the speaker came a voice. Dr. Banner. "Anna? How are you doing?"

"Oh, _great_. I finally know what claustrophobia feels like. Can't say I'm liking it, doc."

A chuckle hung light on his voice, "I know how you feel. Two more minutes. How about I ask you some questions to pass the time?"

"Well, I'm strapped down and in a tube, so, I'm not in a position decline."

"You can say no if you like."

Not sure if they were alone or not, but not like it mattered. Dr. banner would tell the rest what she'd say anyways. _They're all so curious. _  
"Oh. Okay. I won't deny you this opportunity."

The plastic table she was on moved. Bruce made no comment. She took a deep breathe, she was freaking out for no reason. It was fine. The bed hadn't moved. _Get a grip you baby._

She blew out a breath as Banner asked his first question. "What was the last thing you remember before waking up here?"

_Exhaust, metallic shavings embedded into her skin but no blood. The blood came later, once her scream settled in her belly and her lungs began operating once more. The black dots encircled her vision, tunneling until the grass; dewy beneath her, limbs weighed her down under the night sky._

_The blackness and endless nausea never subsided even in unconsciousness. The faraway clicking sounds of gears lulled her into sleep. Darkness. Black. Nothing. _

"I… I don't know. I was dizzy. I was seeing… grass."

"What do you remember doing for your last birthday?"

"Uh… I didn't do anything."

_"You were created for my purposes."_

She bit her lip and held back the gasp behind her quickly bruising lips. Whose voice was that? Bruce was still speaking, asking more questions. It hadn't been the doctor.

Suddenly the world tilted, no, it was the bed of plastic she laid on, caving to the left.

"_What?"_ Anna panicked, it wasn't as if the support beneath her left side was caving… she was strapped to it, and the right side was raising, floating in the middle of the machine like attracted to something.

The weight of the table, scraping against the smooth concave curves of the inner tube, pressed the straps into her side so hard she winced and then began screaming.

Something inside her was tearing, right arm and leg was being torn clean off of her body, falling into the sky like a balloon happily making its way to freedom.

_"…they will not think twice about dismembering you."_

"NO!" her cry of pain turned into screams of protest, her hands blindly working at the restraints and buckles at the end of the canvas straps holding her into this torture.

As soon as Bruce had heard the first confused infliction, and sensors started beeping at an alarming rate, the red alarms filling the MRI chamber eerily as he and Natasha scrambled out of the viewing gallery where they'd been scanning and reading the computers and towards the MRI barrel.

The bed was tilted, so much so that it had broken off its supports, and her body was now supporting _it_, like a cement block attached to her entire body, which had begun to float in mid-air.

"Turn it off!" Bruce yelped not waiting to unstrap Anna as Natasha ran back into the control room, hitting the large green button and blew a sigh of relief when Ana's screams morphed into whimpers.

Even as Bruce half dragged Anna from inside the machines drum, Natasha could see the spreading bruises the straps had made against the girl's body, angry and dark like poison. Too dark… they were black, with crimson edges like sick looking flower petals etched along her joints

"Banner?" she crouched closer where Bruce had gently deposited the shaking girl to the floor.

The alarms had gone off in the entire medical wing, and both he and Natasha could hear heavy footsteps of at least Tony and a few of the other personnel.

Because it was an MRI, Bruce's first instinct was ro run his hands along Anna's collarbone, checking for a pacemaker. It qualified as a ferromagnetic, and was the most likely culprit of how Anna had screamed in so much pain and was lifted into the air.

Something metallic was on her body.

_In her body._

As Bruce checked for any signs of reinforced metal plated bones, his hand paused at Anna's ankle.

"Shit."

The door opened, but Bruce was halfway to the viewing gallery when Tony came in and demanded to know what had happened and if everyone was still breathing.

He crouched next to Natasha, and then eyes zeroed in on the upended table in the middle of the MRI and broken gears poking out from the sides where the table had been split open down the middle from its base. "Jesus." Tony breathed.

"Guys! We need to have a talk, immediately."

The graveness of Bruce's voice struck a note with Tony.

Natasha even let her mask of composure slide.

Tony Stark was not one to wait for the rest of their team, especially when it sounded like Bruce had run over several puppies and was facing the carnage. Or he was facing one of Dooms bots and had no ability to morph into his counterpart, a current nightmare of Bruce's.

One quick glance at the incomplete scan on Anna's body, and Tony's eyes couldn't look away.

"That's impossible." Tony peered over the computer screen and through the glass to the prone girl on the floor. The black bruising across her entire right side conflicted with what Tony _wanted_ to believe and what was on the scans.

Bruce whispered low enough so Natasha and Anna were deaf to their hurried conversation.

"She is… entirely…"

"Robotic," Tony cursed in every language he knew bad words for. "Well this puts a new spin on our lives." He rubbed vigorously at his face with one hand, the other scrolling through the scans Bruce had managed to take before Anna's entire physical body (not skeleton, because one would need bones for that) lifted into the air before the local magnetic field had changed.

"Tony," Bruce lowered his voice to a hushed breath of air, "I don't think she knows."

* * *

**A/N: So, yes/no? it's a small little cliff at the end there, not too much! Review!**

**Next Chapter: the Avengers decide what to do with this new information and what it could mean.**


	5. Impossible, Says One

**A/N: This might be the longest chapter on here yet. Also, I'll be updating every Monday! It'll become regular, I promise. So Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing Marvel! **

* * *

Chapter 5: Impossible, Says One. Implausible, Say the Others.

He was no expert in anything remotely medical. He was an engineer, an inventor, and the absurdity of the pictures lying on the polished wood conference table before him was _impossible_ and unsettled his view of what could and could not happen.

A robot resembling a human was one thing, but acting like one, eating and drinking and sleeping? That was what Tony Stark could not wrap his mind around. She had skin and blood and could feel pain and touch, there were chemical reactions in the bundle of fine wires and neurons that allowed her to achieve REM sleep, be able to feel pain and register perceptions no AI should be able to do. Not even JARVIS would be able to complete the functions Anna was continuously doing with an amygdala to regulate it all. She had a working brain … she was human. Whatever that entitled, and Tony's view of what being human meant changed daily, Anna was it. Sure, sometimes her eyes gave off a creepy steely glow and she looked a breath away from murdering someone, but it would be replaced by a cheerful air of someone who in this situation was taking it in their stride.

She had hoped they could figure out what happened. Why SHIELD was in possession of her in the first place. Why shed turned up in the shape she was in.

She had hope. Computers didn't hope. Machines didn't understand future happiness.

JARVIS had artificial intelligence and was snarky and sarcastic at times, but not like Anna, who had a corporal body under her influence.

_She had willpower._

It was unfathomable.

Stark sat with a scan in his hands, the page glossy and reflective against the conference room lights overhead. What he held was evidence that someone created Anna. Someone with technology hard to come by- tech Stark had recently been considering working on himself.

The second his suspicions went that route he'd check with JARVIS to make sure none of his files had been hacked. They hadn't.

So who else could not only understand AI concepts and robotics, but had the equipment to pull it off? What sicko decided to put a human conscious in a thing of metal and wires and then try to…

"…destroy it." he murmured, unaware he'd spoken aloud.

The Avengers that had trickled in after abandoning their usual routines after JARVIS called them, looked around, and Natasha broke away from her stance against the wall to sit close to his elbow.

"What was that?" Bruce voiced from the far end where he had his own stack of readouts from the blood work he'd done on Anna shortly after she'd passed out on the floor of the MRI room.

"Whoever created Anna, I think they tried destroying her." The shape she had arrived in, how SHIELD had no clue who she was, which meant they'd found her or, "Someone dropped her off at SHIELD headquarters."

"Or she walked. She knows about SHIELD, said so herself. Wasn't so keen on keeping it a secret either." Natasha was worrying the tabletop, clacking her fingers against it. Thinking. "Who do we know able to do this?" Her hands rose over the sheet Stark was holding tightly in his hands.

Bruce raised a hand, and since no one had moved much, he got all the attention. "Those bruises on her skin? A mix of blood, AB positive, and a substance close in a chemical make-up of oil and bonding agents. Only the top layers of skin have nerves, blood, basically normal things you'd find. Her skull is only metal at the subdural level, there's fluid and skin, real hair. Whoever did this had _time,_ money and a purpose. No one who put this much work into it would want to destroy it."

Clint, usually fine to go along with the conversation and pretend he wasn't lost when the two show-offs started talking high and mighty with scientific garble, clicked his tongue. "Or maybe she escaped. Even if she is a heartless robot, I'm sure whatever the creep was planning she didn't like. She seems too smart for her own good. Maybe she ran, ran to the only place whoever was holding her wouldn't want to go; SHIELD. Which means whoever it is could be an enemy with this tech." Clint was building up to something, and the tension in the room tightened. "There's only one guy we know of able to manipulate robots."

* * *

_ "Doctor," The male voice, hearty and entirely too close to her for her not to squirm away in the restraints continued as if not noticing the others man's captor. "I don't think this wise."_

_She flinched inwardly, only to realize her movement was causing the wires to tap against each other and spark, electrifying every artificial nerve the men had already laid across her arms and legs like a psychopathic puzzle. _

_She froze._

_This drew the eyes of the closest whose only tone of voice was a weird mix of importance and concern. If she scoffed inside her head any louder it would be heard, she was sure. _He's not worried for me_, and it made her want to run no matter what pain would come. He was a dangerous man, with a kind face many underestimated._

_"Doctor," the man was trying again, as if he hadn't gotten a reply. She believed he was speaking into the shadows, just making out the curve of a desk and the rest was outside her field of vision. _

_"I don't think it'll be ready by-"_

_"Enough." Was that… she searched for the word or word adjacent but came up with nothing._

_"Work harder or else I'll finish it myself. Do not underestimate my urgency for this to be complete."_

_"Of course not. But a week isn't a realistic goal. It needs extensive work, it needs time. Her files on this subject are scattered, the woman never seemed to write anything concrete down. It takes time to access her mind-"_

_"Did I hire you to amuse me by acting the fool? Machines need no more time than what their creators give them. This needs to be flawless to fool them. They have Stark and Banner, and even if Banner turns into a brute, the man is smart. There can be no more mistakes."_

_"Look, even if the skin cells regenerate properly, the encoding for its personality needs to be uploaded to the core mainframe. Right now we're running the basics, English language, gender, equilibrium-"_

_"It needs to speak more than English. Two of the assassins rooming with Stark speak Russian, Latin and I'm sure others." Annoyance, she knew that one. From them both. The man who seemed to be in charge was annoyed for reasons she didn't understand. The underling, standing closest to her, his jaw twitched whenever he was cut off. _Good, I'm annoyed too; get me out of this contraption, asshole!

_"Doctor, I-"_

_The twitchy jaw was back as the other man held a hand up, and she could see the fold of a cloak. "You're dismissed. Return tomorrow with better news. Take _that _with you- clean it up and do whatever you need. Get it out of my sight."_

* * *

She was not a machine. She had a sense of humour, memories, and a _name._ A smile even if it was small and more for Steve's benefit, still it was there and real. She had skin, and deep eyes that flashed with emotion and words that had meaning and depth.

Steve had seen how different the world had become, and that difference was now staring him in the eyes as he sauntered in with a tray of food. He wanted to believe people were still inherently good, and he could see that good stamped on Anna's face.

She was not just a machine, she had more than that. There was something _there_.

And Steve would be damned if he allowed that something to be handed over to SHIELD when they found out so they could strip away what little humanity Anna had come by.

Which raised more questions. If she was a thing, how could she have a personality, a body? Steve knew JARVIS had artificial intelligence, but there was something more diverse than the obvious physical manifestations.

"Captain?" Anna had a hand up as if unsure disrupting his thoughts was appropriate since they'd locked her back up in the room without so much as a few words.

Bruce had looked her over, taken blood samples and said nothing else.

After assuring them she wasn't in much pain, Thor had deposited her at the bedroom she'd been using the past week. She'd been left to her thoughts for too long afterwards- so when JARVIS informed her that Captain Rogers was on his way with dinner, Anna made an effort to shuffle from her lying position and sit against the headboard.

Even with the movement and Dr. Banner saying there was nothing wrong with her physically, she still couldn't use her right side, and it worried her. Still, nothing hurt. She wasn't naïve enough to know that just because something _felt_ absent meant it wasn't present.

Steve set the tray down on the bedside table.

His eyes searched her face as she took a bowl of broth from the tray, her attention on her rapidly growling stomach. Almost getting ripped apart would give anyone an appetite.

She looked normal. Human. Not unnatural.

The bruising on her skin was darker than he'd seen before, almost inky black with purplish red tinges.

When Banner had taken a blood sample from her right arm, there was blood mixed with a deeper red, swirling at the bottom. He hadn't put thought into Bruce's conspirator glance to Tony.

"Thanks."

"Yeah, you're welcome. Do you need anything else?"

"In a hurry to leave?" Anna wasn't worried about his wanting to be there. She was curious about what was going on outside of her earshot and involvement. She was not a stupid girl; even the Cap could see a mark of intelligence glinting in her eyes that seemed beyond her years. An old soul, and it relieved Steve to recognize one. More so to realize she could possess a soul, with a smiles and laughter. Laughter she was now quietly displaying as she set the bowl down, soup untouched. "Is there something wrong with me, Captain?"

Steve blushed, not making eye contact, focused on his hands clasped loosely between his knees. "Honestly, I don't know. I'm not a doctor."

"I'm not asking a doctor. I'm asking _you_. Is there something wrong?" She was worried she was injured and that shed broken Starks machine, proabably.

Her pleading voice, as much as Steve wanted to give her his truthful answer, knew he couldn't. Banner believed Anna had no clue she was basically a robot with complicated upgrades.

"No, course not." His forced smile could blind out the sun, but his eyes were darker than a void with holding back what they didn't want her to know. Steve just wasn't sure if it was because they believed she couldn't handle it, or the minuscule amount of trust they'd had in her was suddenly swept away.

* * *

The door at the end of the conference room glided open, and Steve came in quietly, oblivious to their conclusions and why Bruce and Tony were pouring over a stack of papers and muttering unintelligible words, finishing each other's sentences.

Steve wasn't sure why Clint Barton looked so pale- a similar expression on his face the Captain had witnessed once he'd found out Loki had made him kill other agents years ago.

Thinking about Loki- the god was missing.

"Where's Loki?"

All eyes broke to him, standing with his arms crossed, mildly curious about what had everyone in an uproar. Natasha shrugged, "We've stopped trying to babysit him." Steve nodded content to take that as an explanation.

Loki wasn't an Avenger, technically, Fury refused to give the god that privilege, and so Avenger business he rarely attended.

Steve sat beside Thor, the only other person in the room he had a similar standing to. Thor wasn't integrated to Midgard's ways of things yet, and anything beyond working a cellphone was beyond him. A boat Steve was in.

Thor summed it up before the Captain could ask. "There is speculation that the Doctor of Doom is behind Lady Anna's condition." That was Thor's simple way of saying Doom was responsible for creating a robot with feelings which had been the subject of what Steve could feel had been a heated debate before he came into the room. The contempt deep in Thor's voice and tense eyes were said more than words could in a thousand sentences: he was not happy someone had hurt Lady Anna. Especially Doom, to which Thor had battled before and disliked the man immensely. By the way the god's hand twitched, Steve hazarded a guess he was ready to pummel Doom into the ground regardless if he was even involved.

They needed proof.

"You figured out who she is?" was that happiness because they had answers, or that Anna would finally have some information about what was going on? Steve had spoken to the girl for a while, getting to know her. She knew her favourite colours, foods, pastimes and what her age was.

She didn't know who her parents were. What she used to do for a living, or where she was born. She guessed Denver, but wasn't positive.

Steve was hoping they'd have something to tell her, because SHIELD had been lacking on that part.

Bruce raised his eyes for half a second, rifled through the stack under his hands and slid it across to Steve. "There was a girl who went missing about three years back; she was an advanced robotics expert working with a branch of SHIELD, classified of course, but that's all that's known."

"Barton, you are looking quite pale."

Loki had reappeared, standing in the doorway Steve had left open. His eyes were mischievous, all-knowing and almost mocking them for not having figured it out yet.

Clint hated being addressed by Loki, and had only recently made a truce not to try and kill the guy. Maiming wasn't off the table however, and the murderous glare he sent Loki told everyone exactly where his thoughts were.

"What?" The archer bit out.

"You know of whom they speak." Loki plainly gestured to include them all. "Please, tell the class."

"Why don't we just ask you?" Natasha's suspicious tone was a warning bell. A tone Loki knew well and so didn't hesitate. He was powerful, not a fool who underestimated the Black Widow.

"I was merely alluding to the fact that Agent Barton knew the girl who vanished. Do not tell me she didn't seem familiar to any of you?"

His eyes widened slightly before narrowing in amusement.

Clint was getting sick of his way of beating around the bush. "Cut the crap."

Natasha sat straight, as if every muscle was clenched in preparation for battle. "Lady Natasha?"

"Ryan Galton." The name shot out of her mouth, a waiting prisoner tasting freedom. "She had a Robotics MSE* from John Hopkins; SHIELD hired her privately to work on a system to battle Nano technology in warfare, to detect and neutralize chemical and robotics weapons."

Bruce stood up from his hunched position, not caring he displaced a few files, slipping onto the carpeted floor in a heap. "Her? I've read her work, she was…" Bruce had no words, too shocked into silence as what Natasha said caught up to him.

Stark picked up his slack, explaining that Galton had been the top of her field for a few years before falling off the grid five years back when SHIELD had approached her. "She was brilliant. And that's coming from me."

Stark stopped in the middle of picking up the files.

"JARVIS!" His bark even made Thor jump, it was so excited and loud. "Pull up all the files you have on Ryan Galton, starting with her identification for SHIELD."

"Stark those are encrypted, classified files you can't-" Natasha cut herself off, eyes closing for a brief moment. "Never mind,"

"You're catching on," Stark's proud smile dropped as his eyes scanned what JARVIS had pulled up as a holographic above the table.

Everyone gaped. What was on the screen was enough to give the assassin twins matching looks of disbelief.

Up on the screen was a photo of Ryan Galton. Change the hair from brown to blond and the eyes from murky brown to a piercing blue and they had Ryan Galton upstairs in bed.

It was her. The robot was her.

"No fucking way." Clint laughed though his shock, finding it humorous. No one commented on his weird reaction.

"Did she do this to herself? I know geniuses go off the deep end-"

"I resent that!"

"But my God…" Steve continued as if Tony hadn't interrupted. "I can't imagine anyone…" he gulped, eyes closing against a bout of nausea.

No, Steve thought, someone _did this to her_. Someone was playing God, and that didn't sit right.

Even Loki looked greener than usual. Steve guessed even a god who had been once crazed had to draw the line somewhere. "Stark, regarding Doom… I do not think it wise to make any rash moves until we have more clarity on what is happening." There was a softness to Loki's voice, and it snagged an edge of Tony's heat that wasn't raging and passionate on the fact someone had dismantled a girl and turned her into something artificial. It was cruel.

"How do we know it's her? It looks like her, sure, but…"

"I don't believe in coincidences." Tony deadpanned at Clint, and there was enough ice there to shut the agent up. Tony's glare could freeze Hell.

Banner was on the same train of thought. "There is no way SHIELD isn't aware of this." Coincidence or not, SHIELD had faults but they were far from ignorant. They were an intelligence agency, one whose sole purpose was protecting the world.

One of their top contractors in robotics went missing and SHIELD decides the Avengers are the perfect baby-sitting choice for a random woman? A woman who resembles Ryan Galton to a T?

Bruce was having none of it. He didn't trust SHIELD as far as he could throw them- not counting the Other Guy- and this was too close to something they'd be involved in.

"We should consult Lady Anna." Thor's booming voice disrupted the eerie silence that followed Bruce's words, all of them thinking separate things.

Clint and Natasha remembering when they'd met Galton at headquarters so long ago, she had seemed a normal woman without much of a social life, always in her lab or- no, Natasha prefered not comparing Galton and Stark.

Steve was frowning at the table, apparently reminiscing how Fury and his guys had tricked him into thinking he'd woken up in his own time. That hadn't gone swimmingly.

No one wanted to think about the things racing through Loki's head, his face was scarily unreadable as he kept reading Galton's files JARVIS had left up, casting a bluish light around them.

"Nat? Time for Plan B?" There was silkiness to Clint's words, like a merchant from a far off land trying to tempt the naïve townspeople to buy his wares.

The assassin duo traded daunting looks. "Is this the mission you spoke about earlier?" Bruce was pushing his glasses up on his nose, the building headache not helping him keep his composure. He needed a distraction and fast.

Nat jumped on those signals, remembering when she met Hulk. "Yes. Do you all know that Agent Hill owes me a favour?"

The smirk on that woman's face wasn't unlike the Cheshire cat cornering Alice. Threatening and entirely too innocent to be believed.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, I know nothing about robotics! Whatever I know I looked up, but no worries the technical stuff won't be the focus for very long. MSE* means Master of Science and Engineering Robotics degree. it is a real degree you can obtain from Johns Hopkins. **

**So, that being said! I will update again on Monday and then every Monday after whenever until this story is finished. I have a vague idea of where it's going still. Hope you all enjoy! **

**Review! They are much appreciated! **

**Next chapter: One of the Avengers tells Anna who she could be and what is going on (kind of) and this Avenger will not enjoy what happens :)**


	6. There is Truth, Often Hard to Find

**A/N: So, I realize that Loki being with the team hasn't been fully explained, which is one of the things this chapter focuses on. The events in this chapter happen before the current timeline, its obvious but I'll warn you anyway, there's also swearing.**

**For this story, this is the order of movies: Iron man, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Iron Man 2, Thor, Avengers and Iron Man 3 (there will be references, you won't have to have watched it, don't worry no spoilers that weren't in the trailer)**

** Disclaimer: I own nothing Marvel. All belongs to that remarkable universe.**

**And finally we continue after that long note…**

* * *

Chapter 6: There is Truth, Often Hard to Find

She loved the rain when she was younger. Not because it was pretty or sounded nice plinking on the roof of cars at night, not because it made her feel mistakes could be washed away.

Nothing so cliché.

Ryan liked rain for the simple reason that she believed it was God interacting with the world. Reminding them He hadn't forgotten or left them abandoned- that he continued to want their environment to be nourishing and caring.

In elementary school she learned about weather systems and her fascination with rain fell a little.

Was her faith in what she had been taught from her parents that shakable and brittle as to believe God didn't exist now?

If she believed that, it meant flowers were the product of science. How could such a beautiful thing as a flower be scientific, explained by something so simple? Water evaporated from lakes and rivers and dew, when clouds grew heavy with their burden, gravity spat it back at the Earth in a twisted attempt at making little girls believe God cared.

But it was not simple. With every new concept Ryan understood about how the world ordered itself, the processes of nature and science, the more she delved if only to prove to herself God was not the only one who could create remarkable things.

Ryan knew there had to be a natural balance, not one party with more power or influence. Not one man or woman with authority over the rest, because in the end she knew nature always found a way to be balanced and thus man had to follow the same laws or else there would be consequence.

* * *

"How drunk was I last night?" Stark was really worried he was seeing things, that he was going crazy. The crazy bit was that he hadn't immediately ran for his Iron Man suit or told JARVIS to call in Fury, the Army and Navy and possibly Rhodey who had War Machine.

When was this fucking god going to stop trying to break into his tower?

The only reason, illogical as it was, Tony didn't do all of those things and much, much more was because Thor stood there with a hand out, pleading.

"Man of Iron, I can explain."

"Do it quick because the Other Guy doesn't like this." Bruce Banner had dropped the glass of expensive scotch he'd been swirling, the liquid still rolling down the steps from the raised bar towards the couch. Tony could see the greenish hue to his ears and decided to step up and stop stuttering.

"Okay buddy, uh… can you tie him up outside?" His eyes roamed over the very real, non-hallucinated _Loki fucking Odinson_ standing ramrod straight beside his brother in the middle of the lounge, _in front of the window he smashed_ with Starks body. Tony was a little impressed Loki kept his cool glare on Thor and not the entire group of Avengers standing ready to defend themselves against attack. They were just about to leave to their respective rooms having finished a rather enjoyable dinner, the remnants of takeout containers still scattered on various surfaces. The team hadn't seen each other in two weeks, all having different missions to occupy them and Stark rebuilding his Malibu mansion after the attack by the Mandarin a few months prior. The general relaxed atmosphere was quickly charged with electricity - literally- as Thor and another man had shot from the sky only moments before, shocking them all.

Only their trust in Thor stopped them from shooting first and asking later.

Thor spoke in a language so beautiful and unfamiliar it must have been Norse, because two seconds later Loki vanished only to reappear, sitting Indian style, on the StarkPad.

"Good boy," Tony taunted loud enough he knew the trickster would hear.

No rejoinder came.

Natasha and Clint stood behind the couch, too uncomfortable to sit, both their eyes furiously trained on Loki's back. Tony was relieved it was pitch black outside, no stars or moon to shine behind the clouds, because it had only been a year since Loki attacked New York and no doubt some people might recognize him even without his war regalia.

Tony guessed calling him Reindeer Games wouldn't fit now. The god was dressed in a plain black shirt and pants, loose against his wiry frame and his sallow eyes seemed darker than they should be. His piercing glare was still unnerving. He must have felt Tony's eyes on his back for Loki turned his face sideways, and then looked away.

Thor's commanding voice had all their attention. "My brother has served his time on Asgard according to our laws. The Allfather has decided an exile on Midgard would further teach Loki about the misgivings he had of Earth. This is…" he tried searching for the word Jane had used, "Probation."

"They don't trust he'll behave in prison on Asgard?" Steve asked, arms tense and ready to punch Loki in the face. Tony recognized Steve's 'I want to deck him' face usually reserved for evil-doers. It made the billionaire a little proud.

None of them were prepared for the strong warrior, the god, to have a voice filled with so much emotional pain. "They do not want him." Thor raised his head, looking at a spot on the glass coffee table. "I could not leave him to suffer alone like before."

"Before?" Natasha finally peeled her eyes away from the god enough to stare hard at Thor.

"He fell from the Bifrost, into the Void, the Chautari found him… they are evil creatures, and their evil infected my brother for too long a time."

"'Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that in your heart, you will know peace.'" Clint muttered, immediately getting Thor's attention but it was Natasha who asked, "Clint?" A hand on his arm gently.

"It's what he said, Loki," The name tasted sour on his tongue, "when he came through the Tesseract in SHIELD, he said it to Fury."

Thor nodded solemnly. "As Jane said, they 'brainwashed' my brother into believing something he would have not believed himself. He was never… cruel."

"They did to Loki what he did to Clint and Selvig?" Natasha outright asked.

"Yes."

"And daddy dearest knows this? So why isn't Loki living large in the palace?"

"Our father is of a stubborn mind. Loki committed crimes against the realms which cannot go unpunished. Exile is one of the more tame sentences that was entertained." He said it with such disgust none of them wanted to know what those 'other sentences' were.

Banner finally spoke up from behind them, having regained full control once he'd heard Thor's words. "So, why bring him here? Why not have keep with you in New Mexico?"

"The Allfather does not want war with Earth, and so only agreed to this exile under the conditions Loki be under the supervision of the warriors who defeated the Chautari." And Loki; but that goes unsaid, for they are all aware said war criminal is sulking outside on the balcony within hearing distance. Thor was clearly choosing his words carefully. "We on Asgard were witness to the after-effects of the Chautari's control. We saw enough to believe my brother was not himself during his madness."

The weight of his words hung heavy and no one spoke against them. The haunting look in Thor's eyes when he turned to see Loki still sitting on the balcony was enough to even shut Clint's harsh words out.

"We are asking for sanctuary. I," Thor turned to look at them all in turn, "am asking on behalf of Asgard for your help."

"You're part of this team, Thor," Steve sighed, "and our friend. Of course we will help."

"Uh, Cap are you forgetting this is my home I'm allowing you to live in?"

"I thought your home was in Malibu, you rebuilt it better than it was!"

"The lab isn't done so it's not really home."

"Tony-"

They fell into bickering, but Bruce clapped Thor on the shoulder and gave him a certain look that was clear; they were welcome to stay.

* * *

"Dr. Galton?" A feminine voice softly called through the door to the office, seeing the woman sitting at her desk pouring over notes in neat folders, colour coded to those opened on her computer, the screen bleakly radiating a band of light as the only source in the room.

It was well past office hours, the labs being shut down and low security lights illuminating odd corners of the building.

Galton's assistant, Mrs. Wells, had just locked up the bioengineering labs when she saw through the half opened blinds, her boss was still seated at her desk in the same position Wells had left her hours before.

"Yes, Regina?" Galton didn't lift her eyes from her note-taking, pen not pausing.

"It's almost midnight. The diagnostics are done on that new alloy Dr. Grant was working on, as well as your cultures from last month. All the info is sitting in the printer in my office. I'm heading home," The last words came from her pursed lips, still red from her lipstick.

Galton hummed, distracted. Tapping her pen against the mahogany desk her work stared up at her from.

"Do you need a ride?" Regina came into the office and shut the door. "Everyone has left."

"No thanks, Gina. Go home."

"Ryan."

"Yes?" She looked up, blue eyes glinting against the blunt light from her computer screen, blonde hair in a messy bun with pieces falling into her face.

Regina usually saw her boss in disarray after long days in the lab running countless tests, but this was different. There was urgency, Ryan's eyes kept darting to the door and her papers.

"Are you waiting for someone?" It was the look in her boss' eyes that came about when an important colleague or sponsor came to inquire on her research progress and debate grant money.

For a moment Regina thought maybe it was a date, but shoved that far back in her mind. Her boss didn't date. _Ever._ She wasn't a stick in the mud; Ryan had gone out with people from other departments for a few drinks after a successful run of tests or a minor breakthrough.

Ryan was balanced, equal parts fun and work.

Although lately it was more work. It spurred Regina to ask, "Want to come with David and I this weekend to New Hampshire? His parents are loaning us their house while they're in England on business."

That had the doctor pause. "No thanks," She didn't meet her assistants eyes, choosing to shuffle mindlessly through some files. "I have a lot to do this weekend. Sarah is off on vacation and there will be no one to run the new simulations. We're on a deadline." She muttered.

Regina shifted her purse from one arm to the next, taking half a step closer, trying to peek at the files she didn't recognize. They never used that letterhead and it didn't look like readouts from any current experiments. "What deadline?" Regina didn't make it far enough to read the typed pages before Ryan closed the folders cover.

"My own deadline, I'm meeting with another company soon, hopefully they'll give us the funding we need." At that, Regina stopped her sly glances and outright marched across the dark gray carpet to grab the closest file that almost hung off the edge of the desk. She sat in the chair opposite to read.

"Stark? That gallivanting good for nothing man, who likes to pair women with booze like he's pairing wine with cheese?" Regina could barely contain her indigent scoff. "He's got money and taste but not the values we are working for. We want to _stop_ warfare with our biotech, we're searching for new technology to pinpoint dangerous weapons and chemicals before they do any harm, not be revolutionary partners with a weapons manufacturer." During her tirade Regina failed to notice Ryan's hands griping the arms of her chair, white with strain. "Doc, I don't think it's a good idea to get mixed up in Stark's antics."

"Gina! Jeesh, hold off for a minute, please. I'm not dealing with Tony Stark . I have a meeting tomorrow morning with a private contractor who's willing to fund our cause. This means more budgets for better equipment and status among the scientific community- he is a powerful and acknowledged man in the medical field. Which means you getting your PhD will be easier; a lot of the universities will want you to be working with them. You won't have to assist experiments anymore; you could be doing your own with your own facilities."

Throughout Ryan's explanation her eyes became brighter with possibilities, it was contagious.

Not so much that Gina hadn't realized her boss didn't answer who it was she was about to deal with.

The spark died from Ryan's eyes. "Victor von Doom contacted me a few weeks ago after he saw the paper we published on tracing nuclear signatures and radiation codes with chemical and alloy properties. Even though our experiments didn't work, he was interested in the direction we're headed. We must've talked for three hours on it, and he's meeting me here tomorrow morning to see our progress." Ryan put her pen down and leaned back in the chair. She rubbed her eyes, leaving her cool hands to rest against them, trying to stop them from watering in exhaustion. "I don't know if he'll fund us after the abysmal tests we did last week."

"Well, at least that one a reaction."

"The opposite one we were hoping for. Instead of neutralising the substance we blew up half of E Lab."

Gina chuckled dryly, remembering Ryan charging into the lab with their carbon dioxide extinguisher before the entire building caught fire.

"You need a nap and a shower. You cannot meet such a handsome man looking like-"

"Remember that I hired you based on the fact all of the professors at MIT swore against you and I needed a challenge. Don't challenge me too much, Gina." The harshness was lost behind her smile.

Gina acquiesced saying more and stood with a compromise. "Come back to my place tonight, you still have clothes there, and then I'll come with you to meet with Mr. Doom. And no, I can always vacation later, this is a once in a career opportunity, and you will not mess this up for yourself. You deserve this after all the years of basically building your own equipment."

Ryan grabbed as many files as she could, and after a second glance at the Stark Industries preliminary offer they'd sent, dropped it into her overflowing trash can on the way out the door.

Halfway down the hall while she engaged the security alarm, Gina reminded her boss to take the lab coat off, "And don't forget you're meeting with SHIELD Monday. They said something about researching robotics and need a private consultant."

"Ugh, I hate dealing with the government. Remember the fiasco with the FBI?"

"How could I forget?" Gina laughed, the steel door closing it off abruptly as they left.

* * *

**A/N: So, if any scientific jargon doesn't make sense I'm really sorry. I tried doing my research on chemical tracer technology and wow… there are some very smart people you can find on Google. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!**

** Reviews are nice to know what you guys think, even if you're not planning to continue reading! **


	7. Damn

**A/N: The title of this chapter was inspired by a certain sex god clad in green and black.**

**Who's ready for a Nat and Clint chapter? It was a job writing them but hey, this plot needs to get a move on.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing Marvel. I only own Regina, Grant, Anna/Ryan and another Agent introduced in this chapter.**

**I KNOW I said Monday's (You're still getting s chapter Monday) so this is extra. **

* * *

Chapter 7: "Damn…"

If you value your life, do not lie to Natasha Romanoff. That woman is more than an assassin, more than a spy who with one cursory glance knows the ins and outs of your mind and what will make you tick like a broken clock. Natasha Romanoff, Natalie Rushman, Natalia Romanova and a handful of other aliases all come down to one woman; who will take pleasure in dancing around you like the ballet dancer she used to be and wrapping you in your own lies before taking your life, with you begging gladly for the reprieve from the psychological torture.

If only the SHIELD agents knew she was coming, it would make it that much sweeter to see their terror, their knowing glances into Hell as she approached with regality no other could pull off. Except this mission required stealth, which is why Natasha is staring at Barton's ass as they army crawl through air ducts of their place of employment.

Natasha usually spent her Wednesday nights with Clint in a more interesting and intimate way, but there were answers to be found and Natasha was anything if not a thorough worker.

The voice in her ear was a soft baritone, but not the one she'd expected. "Natasha, Clint, turn left."

Clint smiled to himself as the turn came into view; light from rooms below striped the inside of the metal ducts like he was looking through prison bars. "Stark, how'd you find out?"

"Is there anything I don't know? The next right takes you directly to the secondary control room."

"No chance." Natasha cut in as she grabbed Clint's boot to halt his progress. "There will be agents there. We do have _some_ security, Stark." _We're not idiots_, was easy to tack on but she rethought it. SHIELD _were_ idiots for thinking they could keep Intel from the Avengers and that they wouldn't ask a multitude of questions. For thinking Natasha wouldn't see the danger in having a creation of Doom's in their midst and not feel her team threatened.

The Avengers were her family, an actual decent family for once in her turbulent life and shed be damned if SHIELD threatened that. She respected Director Fury but not so much Maria fucking Hill.

That favour she mentioned to Banner blew up and out of the water as soon as she saw the second signature beside Fury's on Ryan Galton's employee log.

Natasha didn't want to chance getting Hill involved and blowing the entire thing just for the access codes into the electronic files in the secondary control room. If this backup plan didn't go smoothly, Natasha would use that favour up in a very imaginative way for a little bit of stress relief.

Or get Clint and Stark to play pranksters as they were fond of doing every so often. She couldn't forget then they filled a punching bag with flour, knowing when Steve broke that one too, he'd be covered like a rolling pin in the stuff.

That happy disaster was recorded and logged on Stark's database much to Steve's displeasure and the source of the teams teasing for the following weeks.

"What were you planning then, Nat?" Came another voice over the comm. Was everyone in on this supposed secret mission? Natasha scowled.

She only allowed two people to call her that, Clint and Steve. Since the good Captain was worried about his team's safety and the assassins' success, she let it slide. "There's a vacant lab on the second basement level, it's used for storage. The computers work, and from there we can access the files housed on their home database Stark can't hack from home."

"I'm offended, I can hack anything."

"Not this, Tony." She warned, knowing his challenging tone which meant Tony was about to make a fool's move. "They aren't connected to an outside router; these are encrypted on files uploaded to certain mainframes."

Banner: "How do you know this?"

Natasha tapped Clint's boot, urging him onwards. Her back was starting to ache. She didn't remember these ducts being so narrow since the last time they were up there. They must be leaving the newly built sections and into the old sectors where the room they were looking for was.

"She's a spy, and I'm just awesome." Supplied Clint jovially as he began to unscrew the vent cover they would drop down from.

He pulled out the magnet to the screws wouldn't fall, and once all for were out slid the vent cover easily to rest against the side of the duct. Holding his breath, he peered down into the dim hall. The security lights were on, he could feel dampness against his skin and exhaust from a cluster of pipes down to his left.

"All clear," Natasha heard his barely whispered voice in her ear through the comm., watching Clint slip down gracefully, not a sound as he hit concrete.

A true Hawk, silent and deadly.

Natasha waited, not making a sound so Clint could adjust his hearing aids to pick up distant footsteps or alarms. "Okay, Nat, you're turn."

She fell just as softly beside him, their backs to each other. "Feels a little weird, doesn't it?" He commented as they took the closest hall, descending down to the second basement level, the concrete pitted with scrapes and the circular ends of rusting steel rods poking from corners.

This was an area SHIELD had built in case of an attack. Evacuation used to not be a choice, where people would rather stand and fight than flee an enemy. Noble, but costly, and so the Director before Fury instigated the policy where evacuation in the face of an adversary saved more lives- kept more information secret. So the darker shadows became a disused cluster of storage rooms with invaluable information.

"Infiltrating our own division?" She scoffed quietly, the mask still present, never letting up.

She had guessed right, so Clint didn't answer.

They stood outside of room 12A, also formerly known as Alpha Lab. Slinking to the corners; they waited until Stark finished his scans.

Natasha unhooked the gun from its holster on her thigh at the same time Clint knocked an arrow, their actions deliberate and controlled. The surveillance cameras Tony had switched over for old footage had a clear view of them, their oneness made chills run down his spine.

Those two moved as one entity, fierce and unforgiving. It made his eye twitch.

"Okay kiddos, you're golden. Remember to bring daddy back a souvenir." Stark's voice steadily dropped into static, and then silence.

"Stark?"

"Tony?"

Their whispers overlapped and hung in the cold hall. No reply.

No Steve or Bruce or Tony.

Just Natasha and Clint standing outside a room they hoped was unoccupied.

"All or nothing, Nat."

She didn't need to be reminded, and the moved to open the door.

* * *

"What the hell?!" Stark pulled the earpiece from his ear, feeling the blood pool there and drip down his neck. They'd emitted a high frequency pitch so startling all three of the superheroes jumped from their skin.

Steve hissed and threw his down, healing quickly thanks to the super serum pumping in his veins.

Bruce squeaked, staring panic-stricken at the screens. Everything had gone black. "Who did that?"

"Can you be sure it wasn't a malfunction?" Steve, using his empowering Captain voice that could command droves of soldiers, asked while poking his abandoned earpiece on the glass coffee table.

Stark was of the same mind as his partner-in-crime. "There was a secure link; no way did that happen unintentionally. Someone did that." Already his fingers typed away in codes and data Steve wouldn't comprehend in a million years.

Bruce was nodding along. "Cap, I think we need a Plan C."

The cameras had come back up, but no Natasha or Clint in the barren hallways or outside the laboratory door.

Then:

_"Sir I believe Miss Anna is in some distress in the hallway outside her room."_

* * *

Empty.

It permeated everything, their skin and eyes and the feeling of the unnecessary weapons in their grip.

Disappointment lingered after the adrenaline rush left them wanting. Not faltering, Natasha and Clint continued into the room after their momentary lapse of shock, and each took a station.

It was easy to hack open the computers- SHIELD had most likely forgotten they were down there. One password and the files littering the desktops were exposed.

"Look for Biotech or anything on Victor von Doom or his company. Better yet, find something on Galton." Natasha called over to Clint, head poking overtop her screen.

"I bet you ten bucks and a lap dance I find something useful first."

Nat restrained her urge to smile and give away how funny it was to picture Clint giving her a lap dance.

"I bet you twenty and up the ante with a no holds barred sparring match." The glint in her eyes Clint couldn't see, but he felt her excitement at the prospect of not holding back her talent while kicking his ass to kingdom come.

Gulping but determined, he countered "You're on." Clint focused on searching through the files because he knew his life depended on it, never mind his stupid pride.

Pride was no match against Natasha thigh choke hold.

Minutes had passed in intermittent clicking of keys and mouse cursors when Clint cleared his throat. "Agent Romanoff, I think you should see this."

That was not Clint's victory voice. Or anything Natasha had heard from the archer in a very long time, since he woke from Loki's mind control.

Making her way to stand behind his shoulder, Clint had been clicking open numerous files, scrolling until stopping dead on a name she didn't recognize. He spoke directly into her ear, faces mirrored by the computer screen. "I think we found the woman we should be talking to."

"Regina Wells," Natasha read out loud, stumped. "Is she with SHIELD?"

"Yeah, she was Galton's assistant."

The continued to read Wells' file:

**CLASSIFIED**

**Regina Heather Wells,**

**Bachelor of Chemical Engineering, .E., M.S.**

Personal Profile

_An associate of Dr. Ryan Galton ( .E., M.C.S. & MSE), Miss Wells displays extensive knowledge on the inner workings of chemical engineering and advanced computer sciences, and currently works under Dr. Galton as an assistant in hopes to further her own understanding. Miss Wells demonstrates adaptability and diversity in her social as well as personal relationships according to her colleagues in the New York State Research Facility. She continues to be a success in her research on chemical tracing and chemical detonation from a radius encroaching on one hundred miles. Her knowledge of contemporary and traditional methods surpasses all others._

Areas of Expertise

_Chemical tracing techniques_

_Computer regulated devices_

_Advanced biological systems_

_Administration_

Academic Qualifications

_Bachelor of Chemical Engineering ( .E)_

_Iowa State University_

_Master of Science (M.S.)_

_New York University_

**SHIELD Recommendation: Miss Well would do well to continue her work within SHILED under Dr. Galton's tutelage.**

** I, Agent Raleigh, hereby recommend Regina Wells to be appointed to Dr. Galton's research team effective immediately.**

**CLASSIFIED**

* * *

They're lying to me.

Maybe it's for my own good but I doubt it. I know I'm not naive but my memory lapses assure that I am at times, which is ridiculous and frustrating. I know useless things and complicated science but not my full name. Is Anna my real name? I have no way of finding out, but that was the name floating around in my mind when they asked.

Play it cool, I keep saying, but it's getting increasingly difficult to act like I know more than I do. When really I'm grasping at absent smoke.

It feels safer to pretend.

I get images, swift and blurred, and pieces of sentences I think I'm remembering.

An office building, a sweet face, a sister? No, a friend. I had a friend. Spectacular, I had a friend. Is she nice? Does she know what's going on? Is she looking for me, am I a person worth being missed?

**_"Regina,_****"** I spin, that is not my voice whispering, echoing across the hall.

Is Regina my real name?

**_"Regina!"_**

I turn the opposite way, but only carpeted hall greets my eyes, there is no one else on the floor.

"JARVIS?" My voice squeaks like I'm a frightened child sitting in the dark and not seeing a monster.

_"Miss. Anna, is there something wrong?"_ He sounds concerned, and I am glad tony Stark programmed his helper to recognize distress because this is pretty distressing and is that my heartbeat pounding in my ears?

"No, I'm sorry. No. I just…"

_"Miss?"_

**_"What the hell is going on? Where is she? REGINA! Grant hurry up and get these doors OPENED NOW for the love of God!"_**

I can feel their panic and tears, the crushing pressure against my ribs as the whoever speaks is thrown into a fit of rage so powerful that the pounding no longer resembles a heartbeat, but fists on metal.

_**"Galton step aside, quick!"**_

The wall is near my face but there is no purchase and I'm falling to the floor, something pushing into me.

**_"Wells if you can hear me get away from the door!"_**

**_"No, Grant that hasn't been tested-"_**

They're screaming so loud it hurts my ears, there's heat and pressure and crying and I'm on the floor, back against the wall with nowhere to go. I have nowhere to move!

She's standing there, this Regina they're so worried about as if there is nothing wrong. In this hallway. She's looking at me like I should say something.

I feel vaguely inept. "Gina?"

How do I know it's her? There's something in her grass-green eyes, the way her lips curve in a smile and her face takes on that red lipstick like she was born to it. she is beautiful and alive so why are they still shouting in my ear, these voices?

**_"RYAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU CAN'T-"_**

**_"Grant I don't care! I can't see through this smoke turn on the fans!"_**

Shrieks of metal scraping and the whirring of a plane engine bombards me but this figure of Regina still stands to watch me writhe against the wall feeling like my eardrums are bleeding. I want to reach out but my body is again trapped by these voices, and Regina wavers there, a mirage in a hot desert and I'm suddenly so thirsty and wanting her to stay I know now I'm crying for something that isn't mine. It isn't my memory. I refuse to remember such grief.

* * *

_"Sir I believe Miss Anna is in some distress in the hallway outside her room."_ JARVIS said over the confusion and tense silence, interrupting that Plan C Steve was trying to conduct.

Tony paused his elaborate typing with an eyebrow raised. "JAR?"

_"I believe Miss. Anna needs immediate assistance. I have alerted Mr. Odinson on your behalf."_

That tone was not to be ignored and Tony panicked for a few seconds before getting his butt in gear and forgoing the elevator, since Anna was only a floor above the lab. Before he slipped into the staircase after Steve, who was agile as hell, he called over his shoulder at Bruce, "Get to the lab!"

When Tony arrived, almost breathless, Steve was already there bent over a body.

He thinks a body because Anna is unmoving on the floor, and even Steve cannot pry her hands away from where they encircle her body.

Steve is fruitlessly trying to get Anna to respond. "Anna!" He shouts but nothing comes of it.

"What's going on?"

But it's clear.

The robot has shut down for some reason. Her eyes- its eyes- are open and a cold gray steel colour, like ice encasing mud and making it shine against the sun. They glisten.

There was no Anna left, even she had been stripped away like Ryan had, and all that was left was metal pretending to be human. A shell being methodically shut down, awaiting an upgrade.

"JARVIS," Tony's taught voice somehow rose above Steve's quick words as she began twitching and a mechanical whirring filled the too crowded hallway. "Send all data from anything Dr. Ryan Galton worked on while she was with SHIELD, I don't care if they find the hack."

_"Of course, Sir."_

JARVIS informed them that Bruce awaited them in Tony's lab with a team from the medical floor.

Thor arrived as they were entering the medical bay where Bruce was ready and waiting. The god did not pause, but followed their steps down the hall. "What has happened? Your friend in the sky said Lady Anna was ill."

She looked dead, not sick.

"Where's Loki? We might need that thing he calls 'magic'" It was something Tony didn't understand, but if their diagnostics couldn't explain what was happening, Loki's abilities could be able to penetrate Anna's outer casing and find the problem, in theory.

"I have not seen my brother all morning."

There were a few moments of doomed silence before the room was torn apart by blood curdling, automated screaming.

Anna's mouth unnaturally wide, opens, eyes unseeing and emitting a frequency similar to what the earpieces had howled an hour ago.

This time it didn't break.

* * *

"Do you make prowling a habit?"

"No more than you make unwise decisions." The man wearing black and green leather spat back, cloaked in shadows.

The man before him wore an actual cloak, covering his face and entire body, a pillar of vile intent to anyone who dared to stand against him.

Loki Odinson was not afraid.

There were few who could stand against an Asgardian and be victorious, and a play-actor of magic and genius like Doom was no match, did not deserve to be feared.

Loki didn't want a quarrel, only a conversation.

"You plan to spy on the Avengers?" He continued, ignoring the fact Doom believed he prowled like a stray alley cat. Even as a fallen prince he was still a proud god, borne of legend and wit.

Doom was born of false confidence and the money of lesser beings baying at his back in subservience out of fear, not adoration.

"My plan is none of your concern. Have you forgotten your past transgressions so easily? Those Avengers," he treated the word as if it was a plague, "only put up with you because of your dear brother. You are the ugly duckling here, Odinson."

"Says one who hides behind a mask,"

No sooner were the words filling the air between them did Doom charge his opponent with a dangerous, screeching snarl like metal on glass.

* * *

**A/N: Cliff-hanger!**

**This was my first time attempting first-person-present tense from Anna's point of view so don't be too harsh if you review and I'm sorry if I blended present with past tense! **

**So what did you think? Reviews get Clint that lap dance Natasha promised!**


	8. I'm Sorry, Dave I'm Afraid I Can't

**A/N: Bonus points if anyone recognizes where this chapter title comes from before the end! It's not mine.**

**To those following this story, thank you! It is very nerve wracking posting my first story to this site (especially a multi-chapter) so thanks! You guys are awesome for taking the time to read this, and I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am writing it.**

**Disclaimer: I won nothing Marvel. If I did, FrostIron would be a thing. A big thing.**

* * *

Chapter 8: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

**No sooner were the words filling the air between them did Doom charge his opponent with a dangerous, screeching snarl like metal on glass.**

* * *

**BAM!**

Unforgiving concrete met Loki's back as the force of Doom's malevolent form slammed them both to the edge of the room. Loki's head was saved the resounding crack his bones made, because god or no god that would've hurt if the villain's hand failed to grab Loki's dark hair to pull his face close.

"You're too late, Asgardian." Their noses inches apart.

Loki never flinched. He couldn't access any magic other than to heal, those parts of him so engrained not even the Allfather could detain and it would never be stripped away.

Realizing the dreadful position he was in, the trickster let his smile show, effectively confusing his captor.

Even in the most victorious battles on Asgard and the other Nine Realms, Loki never gave his opposition what they wanted; a reaction of fright in being captured on the battlefield. He was a prince born of cunning, and deserving of the names the legends heralded him with. Loki hardly saw reason to allow his pride to get in the way, opting for a more sly escape than outright stubbornness. He knew letting Doom keep the upper hand for a while would only feed the doctors source of self-absorption, leaving chance for a misstep to be abused in the trickster god's favour.

His plan would have to wait until the mortal felt false security. "Too late? Surely they've realized your ploy, Victor. It's guaranteed your little toy has been disposed of."

"Hardly, I activated her moments before you arrived. I hope your brother is as resilient as the legends say… For the others," Doom pulled on Loki's head, pulling him close. The mask obscured his facial reaction but Loki could _feel_ the pleasured sneer in his thudding heart as he spoke, "Not even a man cloaked in iron has hope. You're all just flesh… she is something more."

_Yes_, the villainous ranting had begun. Loki tried staying neutral, and if what he'd heard about Doom to be true, that under his cosmetic disguises of cloth and mask was a man possessed of the mutations of metal, Loki's spell might work. _Your words will be your downfall; you do not possess a silver tongue, only the skill to waste my time._

Too bad Loki couldn't get a grasp on his abilities with his arms pinned between his back and the concrete wall.

A grin curved his face pleasantly while recalling the time Tony had taught him to head butt his opponent, a trick Loki had first scoffed at during their many bouts of training in the gym. The prince was never one for physical blows; now was not the time to be below coarser forms of violence.

Loki pressed his head into the wall on the pretense he was about to speak, a raising an eyebrow.

Swiftly bringing his head forward against the metal mask, the resounding metal echoed throughout the large domed room leaving a blinding white light to dance mockingly in his eyesight.

Doom fell back as Loki vaulted forwards, tumbling over the man and landing in a kneel on the other side of the room. With Doom sprawled on his back, stunned at such an archaic tactic, Loki reached a hand out and grabbed his shoulder, hauling him across the floor with a force fueled by adrenaline and divine wrath that this man dared to attack his friends using a _little girl_.

Employing a move he'd seen his elder brother use in battle, Loki pinned the man to the ground, not giving any sympathy to his struggle or the pained gasp.

Loki ripped the mask off, hardly startled by the appearance that lay beneath, to toss the twisted metal aside- expecting a clatter against the adjacent staircase and hearing none.

He looked up, to a man dressed smartly in black slacks and a light blue shirt beneath a too-large white coat, holding his glasses.

"Sir, am I interrupting?" He looked nonplussed, clutching his masters mask.

A baleful smile curled on his face, changing it from dense awareness to a more threatening disguise, "Who would you be?" Loki had produced a blade from his boot, held precisely at Doom's throat.

This new man was older, graying hair and wrinkled features not yet marked by age but maturity. He had kind dark eyes and a smile so fake it almost made Loki growl in disdain that this man was trying to lie and pass off his 'stumbling in' on merely chance.

Loki knew enough to know there were cameras in this lab.

"I would be Dr. Grant. And you would be wise to cooperate." The menace in the doctor's voice held warning enough, for the blast of energy that came next Loki expected, but tumbled to the side regardless, clutching his head before he was aware the room getting grey, dots encroaching his vision before swimming beneath a sea of crushing darkness.

* * *

_Jonathan Grant was many things but sensitive he was not. He had a brilliant mind, a nice face and a sturdy demeanor under his white lab coat and his graying hair. In his youth Jonathan worked with the best, in all of the good universities, only to be knocked down a few pegs after an experiment of his resulted in three deaths._

_Back then there were no regulations regarding chemical spills or hazardous materials disposal._

_Now he worked alongside two other incredible scientists, researchers of his caliber._

_Dr. Ryan Galton was an upstanding woman, with the spark of life needed in this new age of technology, and her curiosity was unmatched even by her young assistant, Regina Wells._

_When Jonathan first met Dr. Galton, it was at one of his conferences on sustainable biotechnology and energy transmissions. She approached him with no reservations, holding her small calloused hand out to shake his own, introducing herself and standing at a full height, dressed modestly._

_"I'm Ryan Galton, a grad student here. I think your research is remarkable. Would you like to talk more about your work over coffee?"_

_Such a forward request couldn't be denied._

_They spoke for hours until it began raining and the coffee shop near the university had closed down. Under the downpour, Ryan waved farewell and promised to take Grant up on his proposal to work under him in his department._

_Then he lost his job after the lab accident. Years later was approached by a young woman with smiling eyes and long blond hair, wearing that self-confident smirk he'd never truly forgotten._

_"Dr. Grant, how nice to meet you again. Are you able to join me for coffee?"_

_She didn't care he'd been shunned by his colleagues because of his carelessness. Ryan saw a good man with a sound mind and remarkable insights into biotechnology and weapons._

_She proposed that he work with her at the New York State Research Facility, telling him that her research was based on removing chemical warfare from the arms business by detecting ways to track different levels of radiation and alloy signatures, specializing in chemical tracers and bioengineering._

_He was impressed, more so watching her work and her skills conducting her staff. She treated them all equally and with a natural respect. Her office door seemed not to exist, gladly answering questions and kept long hours when everyone else had gone home._

_To an aging man, she was an inspiration._

_He wanted to help her achieve everything, remembering when that smart independent woman with bright doe eyes approached him at the conference and he hadn't given her a seconds thought._

_He watched that young woman's soul age as new weapons tech improved so much that their research became almost moot. Stark Industries to name one was developing advanced weapons tech, and their meager experiments didn't seem so cutting edge anymore._

_Until one day, on a weekend Jonathan should have been home with his wife, Victor von Doom walked into their lab._

_In retrospect, that was the point in their lives that weapons halfway across the world stopped being the problem. It was the weapon hidden in plain sight he should have been fighting against._

_Victor von Doom was trouble on the horizon, and Jonathan, Regina and Ryan greeted him with warm smiles and hopeful abandon._

* * *

"_She had ideas that could change the nation, but she kept quiet. In the last few weeks before she went missing, she was sporadic and energetic. We all knew she was onto something big."_

_"What do you mean, 'something big'?" _

_"I don't know. but… the Tuesday before she was taken, I found her in her office shredding some documents."_

_"You wouldn't happen to know what those were?" the SHIELD Agent shifted forwards slightly, anticipating a breakthrough in a case he wasn't even interested in. They'd sent him to talk to Galton's associates after the doctor hadn't checked into SHIELD for a few days._

_"No. I thought nothing of it at the time. But I did startle her. She seemed a little jumpy but that wasn't unusual after the long hours she worked. She was a very hard worker."_

_"One last question: What was your relationship with Jonathan Grant?"_

_Regina Wells froze, her gasp just audible over the constant tapping of her foot. "He was a good man. I think Galton knew something happened to him, we hadn't heard from him… I think that's why she was shredding those test results."_

_"What do you suspect was on the results?"_

_"We were researching unmanned missile aircraft carriers, and if they could be controlled by uploading a specific set of complex sequences which could make the same instinctual calls a human could."_

_"I thought Dr. Galton was against warfare."_

_'She is. She was. We were researching how to do it so we could figure out how to destroy it with the same codes. That way if the technology was manufactured, which there was evidence from other countries they were looking into similar techniques, it could be dismantled without any casualties. Ryan was all about ceasing stealth weapon warfare."_

_"I understand." The agent replied quietly, allowing Regina a few moments to compose herself. "Jonathan," she continued, "was very good. He could do anything. He was growing artificial compounds as a side project, metal we intended to mold depending on the frequencies we shot at it, like…" her smile was tight but cheerful, unshed tears in her eyes. "He used the word 'Flubber'. Metal that thinks for itself on a small band on a small shadowlike intelligence, a simulator."_

"Metal that thinks for itself?" Clint's words echo and drop off, Natasha already cut the video, effectively closing the file.

She begins to read Agent Raleigh's personnel logs, "So if this Grant was working on a code to disarm these weapons, maybe he can tell us how if we can find out where he's hiding." Her drawl is short; Natasha's reading into Grant's file doesn't get far.

The computer shuts off.

Clint, still perched in the chair, stills.

Natasha knows the posture. Years of experience with Clint on missions, there was a minute difference in Clint's 'I may pass out from having too much to drink' stature and his 'Nat we're between a rock and a few armoured hard places holding guns.'

"Clint?" She purred in his ear, not hearing anything except the whirr of the computer she'd abandoned.

Yet… Natasha doesn't hear it now.

Clint put up two fingers, motioning to the door before pointing to her and the vents above in the ceiling panels. They needed no other words, glancing at one another knowing it may be for the last time.

* * *

"Do we even want to?"

The words hung heavy, like being dragged to the bottom of the coldest lake on earth by a tonne of concrete bricks. No one could pull them back once said, but Bruce didn't seem to regret saying them as much as Tony wish he had.

Stark had been thinking the same, and it only took a catching glimpse at their patient on the bed between them to realize they might have to leave her like that.

Immobile, dead.

Did they want to salvage what was left in the remains of a mind that was deluding her into seeing things in hallways?

Her hand was twitching, eyes roving from side to side methodically, eerily not settling on anything in particular. Gazing through empty space like a desperate man searching for salvation.

They were so focused on the cause that the effect of her breakdown was lost. Her body only then began rejecting the orders Doom had initiated, the pain of her memory receding to a point her electrical nervous system began registering it as sorrow, as an emotion instead of complex nonentities.

Stark is whispering with Banner, heads meeting in an intellectual wall of possibilities on how to get Anna out of her stupor, finding the cause of the machines meltdown.

"There's a read on her brainwaves, but nothing-"

Dips and arcs of lines began drawing themselves in more sporadic patterns on the holographic screen the two scientists had been studying.

She had begun to wake up.

Steve Rogers stepped over, not understanding a lick of information passing steadily down the screen but knowing it wasn't a good sign when Tony was at a loss for words. Stark had a propensity of firing off words and thoughts faster than light, and now he wasn't able to turn his head as he told Steve, "Something in her makeup is reacting to a trigger, like an ON switch. The catalyst seems to be whatever happened in the hallway. If this is Doom, he sent out his commands on a frequency strong enough to cut out comm. link with the wonder twins. But it stopped ages ago… yet she's still responding to the one command."

"It isn't like a remote control car, where you need to keep using the controls for it to drive. This is… like inputting coordinates into a plane with automated flight paths and having it do the work for you, adapting to weather and pressure changes on an as needed basis." Bruce explains to Steve, through the dancing numerical readouts obscuring his face, when it was clear the Captain was lost.

Bruce is patient with Steve's questions. "So she's deciding if she wants to carry out the orders. So why isn't anything…happening?" Steve considered the girl, harmlessly lying on the bed drowning among wires and monitors hooked to every piece of her exposed skin.

Tony closed his eyes for a brief second before slowly letting them open. All of his magnanimity had fallen in place of a look Steve didn't recognize, even his posture was different. Something heavy weighed on him.

"Tony?" Steve watched the man walk closer to Anna, whose eyes remained open and unseeing.

"I think she's fighting it, whatever instructions Doom forced into her operating system." His look was of a man endeared to anyone who would fight their captors influence, rooting them on with moral support.

_Afghanistan,_ Steve recalled that part of Starks file being heavily redacted but easy enough for a former soldier to understand. Torture, Stark being made to do things he didn't want to do.

He saw a bit of himself in this girl, a comrade in a different conflict but the same pain that alters perceptions of not only the person it's inflicted on but those surrounding them. Steve knew from the moment Tony had walked out of that cave in the desert he was changed.

The Captain also knew that Anna couldn't make that kind of change, that whoever she was before had been reduced to this piece of complicated mechanics and a will not her own. The humanity in her had been siphoned off with every remodel and addition of a wire, creating a instrument from the remnants of flesh and bone. There was no hope for her as Stark believed, and Steve saw when the billionaire realized this for himself.

Anna suddenly jerked, breaking the tense calm in the medic bay. The personnel had been removed as soon as Stark and Banner realized there was a growing energy force building within her, able to bypass her internal controls with a series of complicated encryptions sent from an outside source.

Her back curved over the plump mattress, mouth open in silent cries as suddenly as she'd dropped in the hall.

Thor was quick to stand close, ready to pin her under the weight of Mjolnir knowing her strength was beyond what she physically seemed.

The monitors connected to their patient beeped erratically, signaling nothing good. Steve moved aside while Bruce bent over Anna, a hand on her bent arm hanging over the bed's edge.

"Only her eyes are moving." He pulled at an errant wire that had come loose in her lurching.

A hand comes up too fast for either of the men to stop it. Fingers clench bruises around Bruce's neck, and like a child in a horror movie, Anna is deceivingly too delicate to be restraining the man.

Huffing and shaking, Bruce tries to keep a lid on his surprise, _No, not here. Not now_. His silent pleads go unheeded as the Other Guy begins to colour the white of Bruce's eyes green.

"Bruce?"

Steve is tensed behind Banner, not liking the sounds his friend is trying to hide under his breath.

Tony stands on the other side of the bed, discreetly adjusting the bracelets on his wrists that will call the suit at a seconds flinch. Anna's hand visibly tightens, teeth grinding loudly like a car caught under millions, all coming together to move in the same crushing wave, forming callous words. "**What have you done? Have you killed? Have you instilled fear in all those who dare call you friend? What gives you the authority to dwell with humans when inside all you are is something that no light should touch? Who are you, to claim the right to live and be happy, Bruce Banner?"**

An air of serenity came over Stark, and as Steve was riled by this things speech wanting nothing more than to rip Bruce from its grip, he saw the capricious flicker of protectiveness come over Tony.

Steve had seen the man angry, vengeful and much more, but never so irately calm. "Anna, why are you doing this?" To an outsider his question would warrant looks of incredulity, being spoken so flippantly as if asking what someone wants in their coffee.

Steve didn't know if he was keeping his calm for Bruce's sake or theirs, because it was the scariest look the soldier and warrior had seen in their lifetimes.

The robot paused, head still held upon downy pillows as she turned to take in Tony standing so casually out of her line of sight.

"**Why? Does your curiosity thirst so much for answers, that when he holds your friends life in the balance, you ask questions like an eager child?"**

_He_, Tony frowned, _Doom?_

"Anna you don't have to do this!" Steve bit out hastily, drawing her attention away from Stark who didn't have his suit, and Anna had been slowly sitting up, pushing Bruce to kneel on the floor beside the bed.

Only Thor noticed what the doctor grabbed for underneath the supports of the stretcher while circling to stand nearer Tony.

The robot struggled, mouth agape, and grip loosening.

_I would never do this! _

_Stark is looking at me. Why can't I keep my focus on him? No, something isn't right, it's not-_

The electromagnetic pulse busted forth like particles through plastic wrap, leaving her casing intact but sparking the machinery in the room, leaving it grey and desolate.

"**I'm sorry. I can't stop this."** The words shriek out of her mouth, seemingly her last before it is laughter, only laughter, that is heard above Starks yell, he drops, light receding from his device, and only laughter that covers the Hulk's roar.

The machine, for it is no longer human, is standing in an eye-blink, the sparks from blown out lights dying out halfway in their decent to the ground and taking all the light from the room with it. The bed had overturned, giving Tony some cover against the onslaught of sharp glass from the broken lights shredding everything in an unexplainable gravitational force headed for every life form.

Steve had half a mind to subdue her, instead opting to grab Tony's prone body, dragging him into the hall. Tony shakes, tries to seize Steve's arm but misses, fingers too weak to do more than twitch in pain as spasms rattle his bones. The shrapnel in his chest tearing apart his muscles in a race for his steady heartbeat.

Steve understands Tony's panicked eyes, picking Stark up just as the Hulk has thrown Anna out of the viewing window to soar above them, glass shattering and falling like hail.

Her shoulder slams into the wall with a thud, breaking the clean white tiles patterning the hall with dull cracks even still miraculously on her feet when any other would be down.

All the lights had gone out, and Steve has a hard time ignoring the crunches and growls of Hulk and Anna battling behind them, Thor leading the way to the elevator at the end.

The doors barely close before Hulk tosses the robot like a rag doll, body bending over the wall beneath the broken window in an unnaturally graceful arc before her feet push off and she is airborne, landing hunched.

The last image is Anna, looking over her shoulder at them with a gleam in her eye like flashlights through a fog, breathing evenly as Hulk once again attemtps with a mighty fist to strike her down.

"She remains undeterred." Thor intoned, voice filling the lift like an avalanche.

Tony now barely blinks, heart heard over the receding sounds of battle three floors above.

JARVIS speaks over what Steve was about to say, _"Captain Rogers, Mr. Odinson, there seems to be a malfuntion-"_

"JARVIS!?"

The elevator shakes to a halt, the lights dimming before flickering weakly. They hear with sickening clarity when the bulbs vacillate finally and give out in an audible _click_.

The circular light in Tony's chest, once a comforting sight as it had been keeping a constant stream of light guiding their way to safety, begins to fade.

* * *

** A/N: All the events in this chapter happen at the same time (Except for the obvious one, which will be the last flashback!) if you were confused. I'm not happy with how this chapter turned out but, I spent enough time on it. **

**So I hope you enjoyed it, I'm not very good at fight scenes but the next chapter will be action action action! Also, this story is getting away on me so it'll be longer than I initially thought.**

**Review!**


	9. Sneak Away Little Spider

**A/N: So, since I promised tons of action at the end of the last chapter, this will be part one of three chapters of action. Get ready for major assassin moves, coming up!**

** Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel, much to my disappointment.**

**I Also realize this should technically be chapter 8 (because of Prologue) but... let's just leave that mistake! if that caused confusion because it looked like a chapter was missing, I'm sorry!**

* * *

Chapter 9: Sneak Away Little Spider

**Clint put up two fingers, motioning to the door before pointing to her and the vents above in the ceiling panels. They needed no other words, glancing at one another knowing it may be for the last time.**

* * *

Three seconds was all it took for one of the Doombots to pull Black Widow down from the air vent, down onto her back beside a desk. Hawkeye wasted no time knocking an arrow to his bow- realizing it was too late.

The Doombot was hunched over its prey.

Widow may have been knocked back by the blow but that couldn't stop her from retaliating, arm pushing up, fist tight around her knife she'd faultlessly pulled from her belt, and into the bots torso effectively tearing up towards its head. The edge as sharp as diamond came to slice something vital in the bots neck and it started falling.

Widow rolled out and up, pivoting on her knees into a low crouch, ready to take on the next and not needing to. The second and third ones already laid on the ground, arrows vertical to their bodies, limbs twitching.

The arrows beeped, soprano in contrast to their owners grunt beside Widow as he stood, having vaulted from the ceiling once his partner disposed of her opponent. "We should go."

The assassin grimaced, adrenaline wearing off, her back aching from the fall she'd taken.

It was still grey in the halls, quiet. Echoing drum beats, footsteps, displaced off the concrete surfaces behind and in front of the agents, masking which way their enemy approached from as they crept.

Concrete vibrated, a far off _BOOM_, and Hawk's easy grin as he sauntered ahead reminded Widow of other missions together. Not all of them had ended without a hitch or without one of their lives endangered.

His exploding arrows were enough distraction for other doombots and SHIELD agents who were probably aware of the situation now. Black Widow remembered the broken comm link between them and Stark Tower. Her fingers touched her ear as they paused at a corner, Hawk peering around before moving to the other side.

His fist went up, _pause._

All that came from the earpiece was static, white noise so loud it blocked out her panic why Stark hadn't gotten it back online yet. It had been hours. For all his arrogance on how he was a genius, which none could dispute, he hadn't gotten a connection back.

It had been hours that they hadn't heard from SHIELD or an agent, either. Which was bizarre since their security wasn't that inept. Fury must have found out two of his highest skilled assassins were breaking in, right?

"Clint," She hissed, knife still in hand and eyes tracking the stillness around them, mind racing to put the fragmented pieces of the situation together. There was something going on, and she hoped those doombots weren't just a distraction for _them_.

_What if Stark and the others are in trouble?_

The ill feeling crept upon her entirely, relaxing into her bones, narrowing her eyes to see shadows casting ugly marks on the walls down the hallway, _approaching bots?_

Hawk reacted by instinct, grabbing Widow's arm and dragging her down the hall in the opposite direction after following her disheartened look.

They knew these underground passages connected to the old SHIELD headquarters the Tesseract had imploded two years prior; and an emergency door was coming up, linking a loading bay with the old tunnels.

Could they manage to slip by and go up the few floors to ground level and run across the access roads to where they'd left the Quinjet?

No dice, Widow recognized the boot falls of SHIELD agents on their way heading towards them, about to converge on the bots with them between. They couldn't get caught and hauled in front of Fury when their team might need them at home. That's where the threat was, where Anna was.

They weren't idiots. If there were doombots here for two assassins, it meant Doom had been monitoring their conversation with Stark a few hours before; leading to conclude the villain had cut their radio signals earlier, and most likely keeping it that way.

_Doom wants to divide us, keep us from assembling. _

"Wait," Widow slammed herself against the wall, crouched behind an empty storage container among many broken equipment lining the wide hall on either side,

Widow sucked in a breath, and by the time she blew it out they were running, hidden from sight and sound by the firing of guns and clash of metal as the bots met the agents. Hawk and Widow slipped out the emergency door towards the unstable tunnels of the old SHIELD facility, Widow wishing the closing door would black out the sound of screaming.

Yet it didn't stop, even when they were hundreds of feet away

Up…

Up…

Ascending into the tunnels, there was still…disconnected sound mingling with her breathing and her partner's attempts to contact SHIELD in front of her through a secure channel.

It was her comm link. "Clint!"

She didn't get far in reaching for him, because out of an adjacent hall a heap of metal collided with her side, sending both bodies flying and tumbling to a halt fifty meters from Hawk.

On her back again, a position she had never liked being in, Widow was subjected to the sight of a larger doombot towering above her. It was massive, half the size of Hulk but still more mass than Thor.

Its plated body glistened in the weak, diluted light of the electric lamps hanging every few meters on hooks down the hall, the only source of light except for the bots otherworldly glowing eyes. They bore into Widow, assessing her as a threat; Hawkeye's shouted curse broke her from the robots gaze before its large steel hand connected with her chest.

Without thinking on where her partner was behind them, for the massive beast blocked her view of him, Black Widow hooked its leg with hers, kicked the thing over herself with a single grunt of effort. She continued her roll into the wall so its mechanical head smashed with a deafening _thwack_. Crawling from underneath it, hair masking her vision, the murderous woman didn't notice Hawk burying an arrow into the things back, twisting it with a hiss of electricity.

Beep, beep, beep, red reflected off the wet concrete walls, mingling with the low lamplight throwing shadows around them, making dark corners seem bigger.

"Nat."

It was not concern for her welfare, for Hawk knew her to be physically fine.

His comm link had been muttering eerily in the dense silence after she'd dispatched the irregular bot. His words were a warning, he didn't like what he was hearing.

She strained to hear, leaning against the wall, a snug ringing in her ears not fading like it was enveloping her entire head.

It was Steve's voice breaking through Widow's suppressed alarm. "_Stark is down, I repeat Stark is down, does anyone copy? Jarvis has been shut off, there's no getting in or out of Stark Tower, we need assistance. The Hulk is keeping the threat contained. Does anyone copy?"_

Caps authoritative voice calmed her enough to pay attention to his words and not the mantra of _he's alright_, repeating in her mind. Like every other mission they'd been on when he took control over the comm and delegated where everyone was needed, the Captains voice forced itself to be heard through any disaster or driving emotion. He had an uncanny knack for knowing just what plays were needed to get the job done safely and get his team home in one piece.

Widow knew something was seriously wrong, not just because the Cap was saying Stark was down, but the edge to his voice.

For once, Captain America sounded unsure of himself, unsure of what to do next. He wasn't just asking if anyone else heard what their situation was, he was asking for assistance.

He needed help from his team.

Hawk put a hand to his ear, eyes locked with Widow. "Hawk and Black Widow copy, we have a situation of our own here Captain." She knew he kept his eyes on her not for his own assurance she was alright after being bowled over by the oversized machine, but for hers.

_"Thank God, are you two okay?"_ Relief and excitement flooded through the connection, like they could see Steve's face break into a smile.

"We're fine. Doom decided to send his friends to SHIELD." Widow nodded towards the way they were going, deciding to walk and talk. The sooner they could get out, the better.

The rhythm of the enemy's footsteps was never washed out by their conversation with the Captain; it was a constant sound at their backs, setting their teeth on edge. _How many bots did Doom send this time?_

"_Can you get out?"_

"We're headed to-"

Hawk's pause wasn't due to another attack, but the peculiar silence accompanying his words.

If Doom had shut off their link before, what made them believe he wasn't listening in now?

"Captain, don't share any vital info, I'm afraid this channel isn't secure anymore."

"_Affirmative. Don't worry about anything except getting to safety. Contact us when you're out."_

"Got it, Widow and Hawk out." He pocketed his earpiece, the crackling static not helping with his concentration.

Black Widow kept hers in, even with static, it was an odd comfort to know there was a connection with her team.

The exit was close, black spray-paint X's on one side of the hall told them as much. This was where most of the debris had been cleared out after the event; three floors separated them from ground level. The stairs were clear; the creeping ominous feeling fading with every step and easy breath Widow took.

She focused on Hawk's back and the swirling stairs below in intermittent glances, keeping watch on them both.

Hawk opened the door to the remains of the old facility, a huge crater made up of pieces of walls and vehicles, collecting dust from the years of being left on its own. The basin in the middle, dark and clouded by the breeze whipping sand and loose grass about, was taped off with yellow CAUTION signs and half-assed chain link fences here the ground was unstable.

The door they just came up from was connected to pieces of wall, half of it hanging by rusted rods overtop the gigantic crater to their left, one of the many depressions in the ground spoiling the area as big as ten football fields.

"Ground zero." Hawk had an arrow knocked, scanning the scene for movement.

Widow felt the vibrations underneath them, seeing bits of rubble from the outskirts of the deep well fall towards the middle, pulsing before dropping from sight. Bots moving underground.

The assassins began picking a way over walls of halved concrete and vehicles, seeing old storage cases cracked open, spilled contents scattered around, useless.

Widow stood atop a still standing wall with glass as fine as sand scattered on its top.

The new SHIELD base could be seen across the expanse of grassy fields, its lights blurring the starry sky above it like a dome of diluted light. Buildings cropped together so tightly as to look like one complex of glinting windows and dark walls.

A compound under siege. From their distance, wind carried shouts and gun blasts, joining with many eruptions of lights from various areas of the base, all directed towards…

Bots swarming in the sky, burning points of lights as bright as stars and more deadly than those burning balls of gas light years away.

Hawk stood below, behind the wall, hands twitching around his bow nervously. They were out in the open, exposed among the rubble.

Widow knew they could do nothing to help SHIELD; Fury was capable of handling this.

Just as her thoughts caught up with her body and she jumped down, resolved to get back to Stark Tower, an explosion went off.

Half of the doombots were blasted from the air, falling back into darkness, out of the reach of the base's blazing lights.

The remains of one fell between them and the base, cloaked by the darkness between where two hills met. Hawk didn't miss that it crawled brokenly towards them, feeling the prickling of the things eyes on him.

Widow stepped to the side, watching as Hawkeye drew the arrow up, elbow at his ear, unwavering, and muscles taut underneath his black uniform.

He waited until he thing wasn't obscured by a pile of rubble, and let loose the arrow.

It silently embedded itself into the bots eye socket, even with her meager eyesight compared to Hawk's, Widow could see the flare of electricity skitter across its shell before the thing dropped with a thud in the grass atop the hill.

Hawk shot it down with perilous accuracy.

_That's my boy, _not needing to comment out loud she walked past him, not wasting another glance on the dead bot.

"Fury's going to have our asses." Hawk followed his partner, not liking how she favoured her left leg.

Black Widow kept her gaze locked on the thinning carnage of concrete and metal beams before them, and the eventual flat road that circled back to their abandoned Quinjet. Beyond miles of flat terrain rose a large moon carved in half by clouds.

"Serves him right for keeping Anna a secret and leaving us unprepared. He knew, Clint, and now it might be too late."

The echo of the Captains words still rang in one ear, as her other ear kept catching sounds of ceasing combat from the SHIELD base they were leaving behind, "_Stark is down, I repeat Stark is down, does anyone copy…?"_

_Stark you'd better be alive when I get there, _Widow walked faster, not minding the burning in her twisted ankle or the faint hope in her heart she wished would dissipate, taking her growing anger with it.

As they boarded the Quinjet and she bit off angry Russian commands for him to get the bird off the ground, Clint Barton shot her a withering glance. It wasn't everyday Natasha Romanoff let her impassivity slip in replacement of a baser emotion like rage, which would have been preferable to the feral grin she wore like a plate or armor.

Her fingers numbly typed over the control panel, patching in the Captain over the intercom. "Black Widow to Captain America, do you copy? We're headed your way, thirty minutes."

Static answered came through in answer, and Clint pulled up on the yoke before Natasha could react beyond glaring out the windshield in shielded panic, setting their course in silence.

The static remained as the rose above the dark clouds. Natasha continued to hail the Captain.

* * *

**A/N: So, next chapter will either be Thor/Tony/Steve and Bruce/Anna or Loki and Doom. Hope you enjoyed this! It's not as long as I planned but the next chapter will be pretty long to make up for this one.**

**I also might update early. So keep a lookout!**


	10. There's a Lost Girl in Those Eyes

**A/N: Okay so thank you to everyone following this story, I'm glad you all like it so far! This chapter took me a loooooong time, with more o's than an entire universe could hold because it's largely Steve's POV and it's hard to write... **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, whose glorious characters are treated better than fanfic stories treat them.**

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_There's a Lost Girl in Those Eyes_

**The elevator shakes to a halt, the lights dimming before flickering weakly. They hear with sickening clarity when the bulbs vacillate finally and give out in an audible click.**

**The circular light in Tony's chest, once a comforting sight as it had been keeping a constant stream of light guiding their way to safety, begins to fade.**

* * *

Steve, Tony and Thor were trapped. If the self-proclaimed genius, and no one could really dispute this, had been awake he would have taken out the control panel and hot wired their way down into the lab. It seemed electricity was still working, as the dim lights lining the top panels of the elevator kicked on dimly, giving little light or reassurance.

Unfortunately Tony Stark was lying crumpled in the corner of the elevator with Steve holding him upright, arm wrapped around his back.

The pounding above of the Hulk and an evil robot going at it with all their worth was getting steadily closer, gradually making Steve's heart beat fast, words caught someplace between his lead-filled stomach and sweaty brow.

In the lighter grades of shadow Steve could make out, Thor was holding out a hand, arm straight and braced for-

"Thor, no!" Whatever damages the hammer would make, Thor could be responsible for the elevator to drop almost sixty floors.

The god blew out a frustrated sigh, not seeing another way out.

Stark certainly wouldn't survive that drop without his Iron Man suit, so they had to proceed with extreme caution. The man was barely alive now, fingers twitching every so often, breathing shallow and irregular, pulse much the same, **_cardiac arrest_**_._

He had fallen unconscious as soon as the light from his reactor had given its final flicker, taking most of Steve's hope of saving him with it.

Stark was too _quiet_, **_this isn't good_****.** Steve knew the timeline.

Pepper warned him before almost every mission that Tony could only withstand three minutes without the reactor keeping the shrapnel in stasis before it would be too late.

**_Two minutes to go._**

Everything had happened so fast that now in the standstill of the elevator and their irregular breathing, reality came to slow motion.

_The hammer suddenly broke through a foot of metal and burnished wood paneling. The elevator gave an annoyed rattle._

**_We aren't falling._**

The light filtering in through the hammer-sized opening like sunlight through breaking clouds, dust motes spiraling around them from the insulation fluff the hammer had displaced, showed they were floors below the fighting.

The Hulk's roar tore through the calm, as if egging them on. Steve picked Tony up and followed Thor, who'd with bare hands ruined what was left of the sleek, sliding door for safe passage.

The elevator, finally having enough, slid in sparks and scraping metal down, whoosh _thump_.

Steve's shoes and Thor's leather boots clapping on the smooth shining tile meant they were _moving. __**There's still a chance, hold on Tony!**_

"Rogers," The god halted, leather squeaking against tile. The staircase door faced them, with the floor number stamped above the small viewing window.

**LVL. 19**

They were a floor above the lab and salvation, for Tony had made it a habit of storing spare reactors there. If they'd been at SHIELD, a team of medics would have met them already with a spare reactor, even if Tony hadn't needed it. The Hellicarrier was well equipped and trained for this, as they had to be.

"Once we get Stark stable, we should try to contact SHIELD," Steve whispered as they descended spiraling stairs towards the eighteenth level.

"What of friends Natasha and Clint?"

"Hawk and Widow can handle themselves. Besides, Widow would do more than murder us if we let Stark die from a little shrapnel." His words were only easy flying because they'd successfully walked through the door into the lab which occupied the entire floor, and his nerves stopped buzzing like sound in his ears, anxiety calming.

The elevator opposite the stairs they came out of looked harmless with its sleek chrome door, not like the wreckage it likely was having crashed into the lobby.

Steve hoped the receptionist hadn't gone home yet and had called the authorities. Mrs. Walls knew to call SHIELD if anything at Star Tower looked amiss and if JARVIS stopped responding.

For once Steve was glad for Fury's nosy protocols.

Heaving Stark onto a lab table, he wasted no time in racing over to the cabinets lining the wall and fishing for a useable reactor. It had to be a triangle, he knew, for the others would do more harm than good.

Grabbing one, Steve turned to see Thor had already ripped the man's shirt off, waiting to eject the device. Pushing down his urge to look shocked that Thor knew how to take out the reactor, Steve lobbed it towards him.

In one deft movement much too graceful for an Asgardian warrior, Thor had the malfunctioning device on the floor and the new one sliding into the open metal cavity in Tony's chest.

They'd seen it done before, when Tony had been ripped from his suit and Magneto had taken the reactor with it. After Stark had passed out from the pain and shock, Natasha out of nowhere assaulted the mutant, performing her trick of clamping her thighs around her neck, throwing like a professional baseball player the reactor to her always waiting partner, Clint, and he had put it back into Stark's chest.

A few seconds of baited breath and the team collectively gave sighs of relief when Stark jerked awake.

That wasn't happening now, however, for the billionaire was still unconscious on the large lab table, pale and unmoving.

**_This guy is going to give me a heart attack._** Which was normal for their on and off friendship. Usually one of both of them ended up in-hospital after a mission, but this was too much.

"He still does not wake." Thor rumbled. He looked just as worried for their friend.

Lights began flicking into life, the white dull security lights fading out to be replaced with fluorescents, computers whirring to life. "-_tion with my systems."_ JARVIS' automated, accented voice filled the lab with deafening hope.

Steve whooped, almost falling to his knees and catching himself on the edge of a nearby stool. "JARVIS, can you contact SHIELD?" His moment of relief over, Captain America hurried over to where Tony had been remaking his old uniform and punched the manual override to get the glass to slid open.

"_Captain Rogers, Mr. Odinson, there seems to be a malfunction with my systems."_

Thor raised his eyebrows, looking to the high vaulted ceiling, "There is something amiss with Stark's friend."

"JARVIS? You told us."

"_Captain Rogers, Mr. Odinson, there seems to be a malfunction with my-"_ The silence stretched for too long, but the Captain didn't think on it. JARVIS wouldn't be of any help; whatever blast Anna had emitted was powerful enough to knock out all of Stark's security systems.

Which also meant the manual override for every entrance out of the Tower wouldn't work, because Stark was a paranoid guy with too much time on his hands and an obsession not to leave anything half-assed.

The Tower was on protocol 13-F, full lockdown.

"Captain,"

Thor's words were unusually loud- and Steve's lungs made their final drop into his stomach, a drop he heard because the Hulk had gone quiet, the constant sounds of fighting above them ceased to the point Steve could hear the fabric and Kevlar of his suit rubbing against his t-shirt as he pulled it on.

His breathing was so loud Steve thought it would alert Anna to their whereabouts. He refused to stop breathing, as hard as it was to continue as the reality of the situation ached in his chest.

The computers were still on.

Steve moved towards what Stark rarely used as an office desk, more to deposit old equipment he'd later tweak. There sat two prototype earpieces in a metal and velvet lined case, set to their secure channel only the Avengers and SHIELD used.

Desperation had long since passed- Steve didn't care if Anna was able to listen into their frequency or whatever robots could do in 'the future' he had been catapulted into by being what Star had once called a 'capsicle'.

Steve didn't care if Tony called him that and only that for the foreseeable future, if only the guy would _wake up._

Holding the delicate invention in his palm, **_it's worth a shot, _**the Captain turned the ear piece on. Static, snippets of words and then a long beep. Steve waited, and hearing nothing else turned on the two-way option to all frequencies someone might be listening and spoke, "Stark is down, I repeat Stark is down, does anyone copy?" He kept eyes on Tony as he spoke. "JARVIS has been shut off, there's no getting in or out of Stark Tower, we need assistance. The Hulk is keeping the threat contained. Does anyone copy?"

The Captain motioned to Thor to stand by the elevator shaft while he positioned himself at the staircase door, because if Anna was listening, they were the only lines of defense at the moment and Steve had a member of his team to protect, when it looked like Tony would be unconscious for a while.

"_Hawk and Black Widow copy, we have a situation of our own here Captain_."

**_Hawkeye!_** He sounded pissed but _alive_. "Thank God, are you two okay?" If Anna had been wreaking havoc here, there was no telling what Doom was doing to SHIELD, and something was obviously going on by the way Hawk spoke, as if he was trying to whisper but his voice was echoing off something on the agents end.

"_We're fine. Doom decided to send his friends to SHIELD."_

Thor kept glancing at the elevator door… concentration etched in every line on his frown. Did he hear something? Steve got distracted, "Can you get out?"

Steve walked over to join Thor, hearing it too. Something was slowly scraping on the inside of the elevator, sounding close to a truck's emergency brakes hitting slick blacktop.

"_We're headed to-"_

Steve didn't hear whatever Hawk was trying to say, shoulder to shoulder with the God of Thunder, straining to hear if the grinding had stopped. It was back to eerie silence before Clint's voice was back in the Captains ear. "_Captain, don't share any vital info, I'm afraid this channel isn't secure anymore."_

"Affirmative." There was a soft click-click-click, unquestionably not sitting right with either blonde Avenger. They stepped back as one unit, Thor's hammer up. There was no use telling Nat and Clint anything else or keeping the line open if someone really was listening. Steve began thinking Anna was. "Don't worry about anything except getting to safety. Contact us when you're out."

"_Got it, Widow and Hawk out."_

Steve switched the comm link off.

Nothing happened for what seemed like hours before a gigantic long scratch too loud to be natural shook the seamless door open, revealing an empty, dark shaft.

Steve wasn't ashamed to admit Tony's painful groan from behind made him jump.

"Stay here, Thor." Steve instructed, backing towards where Stark was half-sitting on the table, eyes trying to focus on Steve's movements like the world was tilted.

It made sense that since Tony had checked out, his lopsided grimace turned into a full frown when he saw Steve wearing the Captain America clothes.

Not just his old red, white and blue stuff either- it was the suit Tony had been designing for him, based off of old photos of the Cap in action during the Second World War. It was covered in dark muted patriotism and more Kevlar than what Tony referred to as "Steve's Spangled Tights". He held the shield in one hand, the other stretched out resting on Tony's shoulder.

He flinched at the contact.

"Stark?"

Once words were spoken, Tony leapt off the table, hand on chest, _it was there and glowing and he was okay_. The two men he had to thank for that stared unblinking at him, waiting for further reaction.

Tony remained stone still when faced with the sickening crunch sound high in the elevator shaft that was clearer now the door had opened.

Springing into action after he remembered what the hell was happening, Tony headed for one of the three suits lining the walls.

As it moved in whirrs and clicks around his body, the Captain sprouted off orders, "Thor, find a way to close those doors, Iron Man try and get JARVIS running again-"

"On it."

"-and contact Widow and Hawkeye,"

"**WHOA**,"

The iron Man suit was beeping erratically, with Tony inside it but not moving.

"Tony?" He let his concern show for a millisecond, and scolded himself. It was not the time to be a friend; it was time to be the team Captain, and God help him if his emotions got one of them hurt. "Iron Man, is there a problem?" Steve couldn't see the man's face, faceplate down and not rising as usual when Tony spoke to them out of combat.

Tony didn't register the change in Steve's tone, he was too busy trying to eject the suit and failing. His helmets interface wasn't appearing, everything remained dark. It was powered up, and in a lock.

Someone had uploaded a virus into the systems and _locked his suit! _"FUCK, this isn't happening. Cap I'm not going anywhere." The speakers conveyed worry and defeat almost as well as a human; it gave Steve shivers for the first time since hearing the Iron Man voice. He was dealing with too many robots lately, it began to wear on the Captain.

"You're…stuck." Steve's words became the harbinger of bad news… Stark shouted in warning at the same moment something crashed from inside the elevator and pinned Thor against a concrete wall on the other side of the lab.

It was Anna, looking deceptively innocent while executing a chock hold on the god. Feet bare, pajama bottoms trailing the ground as they were too long for her, and the plain white t-shirt only made her look lost among the three heroes in their suits, and cape, standing dazed at her unconventional attack.

**_She slid down the elevator shaft? _**

It connected in Steve's mind what those noises were as soon as it looked like Thor couldn't shove her away. That was odd, the Asgardian useless against a small metal girl, but Steve pushed the reasons from his mind.

"Anna, let him go. We don't want to hurt you if we don't have to."

"Not the time for chivalry, Steve." Stark's voice, filtered by his mask, was strained as he tried to manually override his suit from the inside to pry it off him.

"**Rogers. I do not think you have the authority to boss me around. Your ragtag team may have the need to listen, but I do not share their respect. So you will do as I say, or the Asgardian will die, now.**"

The voice had been wrapped in many, trilling into one long, dark sound, intertwined with the same elements Steve heard in the Iron Man's speakers when Tony spoke. Fabricated words for something to be heard speaking behind a mask.

The monster was saying, _if you do not obey me, a worse fate will befall your friends. Ryan Galton got off easy when she died._

Captain America didn't believe that. He couldn't. **_There is still a girl in there, right?_**

"What did you do to Stark's suit?"

**_Stall her_**, Tony still needed to get himself out of the suit, and Thor looked like Death himself was mocking him for how long it was taking Anna to choke Thor into fainting. For a metal machine, she sure wasn't squeezing too hard to do real damage.

Steve's eyes widened a fraction, hoping Anna didn't notice, or the thing that'd replaced her. She was holding back. Why?

"**What is wrong with the suit was not my doing, Captain. He has many tricks; I am only one of them."**

"What kind of badass villain talks like that, anyways?"

**_This isn't the time for your mouth, Tony._** Steve ground his teeth. Leave it to Stark to piss the girl off.

"**One who cares not for your fate? Either way, he will get what he wants."**

"He?"

"Stark!" Steve had enough chit-chat. Thor was turning an abnormal colour, still struggling against Anna's hold.

She threw the god to the side like a rag-doll, a plaything, rounding on the Captain before launching herself, shrieking, into him.

Making contact with his shield, momentum was her downfall, body ratcheting off the domed shield to rebound off a corner of the lab, half her body hitting a glass case, breaking around her.

Twitchy movements brought her legs up and under her prone form, crunching as the bones that should have broken were made right, repairing.

A trickle of blood fell off her pale lips, but otherwise was unharmed. "**Rogers.**" Desperation stopped Steve from his battle with Stark's armour, following the billionaires hurried instructions to hit the latch to manually pull the front breastplate off. Thor had come to himself enough to assist, ripping off the back of the suit and helmet, careful not to take his friends head with it.

Thor did not give Anna the time to speak, already pressed against her; blonde hair mixing with brown, his face inches from hers. He pushed her body up, glass scraping against her arms, bloodied her further by his forced carelessness. Until Thor was happy with the damage did he release her, snarling.

She fell to the ground.

Steve couldn't see what Thor had gone still for when he had been seconds away from bringing his hammer down upon her, "Lady Anna?"

"**GO AHEAD! Kill me, Asgardian, now's your chance."**

Steve could see Thor's tense shoulder though the heavy metal of his armour and blood red cape. His hair looked in disarray and paler than its sun burnished gold. His fingers twitched against the handle of his hammer, palms squeezing against the temptation to deal with the thing now.

Something stopped him.

"We must leave." Thor grabbed a stumbling Tony, finally able to remove himself from the suit, and made their way to the staircase.

Steve felt the outcry as much as he heard it. **_What-?_** It screamed of pain and violence, and a subdued want to just kill everything in the room with its voice alone. **_What is that?_**

Steve heard the thumping of his heartbeat, didn't feel the warmth of blood spreading over his head until sparks and dots of white light invaded his vision.

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**A/N: Okay, so as said in the one-shot I posted a few days ago (if any of you are interested in Supernatural fanfic's, go and read it!) you will get two updates this week! The next chapter will be Doom and Loki focused.**

**Hope you all enjoyed!**


	11. You Were Never Wise, Only Clever

**A/N: I don't know why, but this chapter gave me a LOT of trouble. Loki's POV I tried keeping in character, and hope that third person works better than the first draft of this chapter, which was in first person.**

**Hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I will never own Marvel. Perhaps that's for the best.**

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You Were Never Wise, Only Clever.

_"I would be Dr. Grant. And you would be wise to cooperate." The menace in the doctor's voice held warning enough, for the blast of energy that came next Loki expected, but tumbled to the side regardless, clutching his head before he was aware the room getting grey, dots encroaching his vision before swimming beneath a sea of crushing darkness._

* * *

Domed ceiling, cold steel crossbeams curving in and out of the dimly lit room he found himself waking in. _**The fools haven't moved me**__._ Were they afraid? Overly cautious of course, he was the God of Lies, Mischief and all that spoke of deception.

In his sleep, which Loki guessed was poison induced- years of childhood with Thor yielded many days when he'd test his dear brother's endurance at fending off the effects of certain poisons, which did prove effective on one occasion when Thor ate the wrong end of a barbed vine- Loki discerned the voices of the Avengers, broken but there.

In this room, he and another we're the only bodies apart from glinting steel tools and machinery along the walls.

"Our Prince is awake."

**_Grant._**

He still wore the white lab coat, sitting casually in the corner of a room with a holographic screen close to what Stark uses in his labs. **_It pales in comparison_**, for what Stark used is saturated in colour and intrinsic depth taken from his own intelligence.

Grant is a beast, not a man of science. Loki knows the look of the deranged, the twisted man holding power too large for them to control.

He used to be that man. Loki knows how Grant thinks, and sees in the dim holographic interface floor plans of Stark Tower, a list flying down the side of different numbers and combinations of code.

More voices subdued as if through cloth, emotionally drenched in panic, worry, surprise, calm. These different variations telling Loki more about the situation outside the barren walls of Dooms labs, than Grant's sinister smile directed at the god. As if a smug _I win_ was soon to follow.

Win against whom? Surely Doom was paying him well, if his clean cut suit beneath the white coat and polished black loafers indicated this man's status. Loki knew clothing didn't denote how rich a person was- Tony was a perfect example. The last Loki remembered Tony Stark had been wearing an old black Metallica shirt and threadbare jeans.

Even if the pay was not substantial, Grant as far as Loki knew had nothing against the Avengers or even his previous employer, SHIELD. There were no grievances laid or on account in Grants file that Loki had seen, with the help of JARVIS. He even had a wife, Samantha.

Dr. Grant's motives were unclear, _but his actions weren't_.

"Can't speak? Forgive me, but I thought it wise you hold your tongue until I tell you some things. My employer agrees."

Doom wasn't there. The corners were dark, but Loki knew the doctor was absent, off licking his wounds and crying like the mortal he is. Expertly, Loki kept his satisfied grin off his face. There would be time to gloat later, when his brother was among his company and could share in mocking and pummeling Doom into his highly polished floor.

The room was ostentatious, nothing so smooth and richly articulate as anything Stark owned. There was nothing personal, nothing misplaced or spoke of who Doom was apart from his work. Loki suspected Doom didn't have enough in him to live like the others, the mortals who swarmed Midgard and interacted.

Reclusive.

Grant was no such being. Even sitting in the rolling desk chair, studying his schematics and diagrams that was of no use to Loki, the god could see Grant was reserved much like his 'employer' but careful not to bring attention to it.

Then, as if a child were wasting away the afternoon with useless activities, Grant rolled himself over to where Loki still laid, hands bound with layers of metal and mouth gagged with a leather strap. "Loki, right? If you give your word you'll behave, I'll remove your gag."

Not even giving time for Loki to nod or indicate he would cooperate- there really was no other choice if he were to gain useful information- Grant forcefully and without regard to hurting him, tugged the strap over his head, discarding it across the floor.

Loki tried speaking, and Grant held up a hand. "Know that your brother is in some danger here, and I am the only one who can control the thing hunting him."

"You speak of her as if she were never your colleague."

There was no mistake in the doctor's eyes, he still cared for the woman he spent years researching with, and sharing triumphs and loses together. He thought of her as what… a daughter? A trusted peer? Loki didn't know. The flash of emotion was gone before he could put a name to it.

The doctor's eyes narrowed slightly before widening in mock surprise. "You know who it is?"

"Do not play games with me; it would be a grave blunder. Your intention was for us to figure it out. Have her gain their sentiments and pity as feeble insurance they would hold back and try to reason with a mindless machine."

Loki shifted, noticing Grant flinch slightly, hands tight in fists on his lap. So not a complete fool as to think Loki entirely powerless, yet still a fool. "You are wrong- the Avengers will give no mercy." Loki put enough conviction in his voice to convince the doctor what he said was truth.

Loki knew if Thor were to see the slightest indication in the girl turned monster's eyes he would stop himself from harming her- he had done it with Loki, and it hadn't ended well for either of them. Images of the Void had to wait, however, because Grant had rolled back over to the large desk after busts of static and voices lured him.

It would be easy for Loki to shed his restraints; meagre mortal devices could never truly hold him. Yet he refrained from it.

The motives behind this entire operation were misplaced- Loki didn't know the endgame, and there was no harm in pretending to be docile for more information.

Grant's voice held a calm anger, rolling off him, offensive. "It seems your friends are onto something-" Clearly. Grant was not just angry, he was irritated. _Fuming_. His finger ran across a part of the hologram and the volume turned up, voice hitting Loki hard. Only one voice could connect severed tendrils of mental control so quickly, to the point Loki reminisced hearing the Chitari in his mind before he could ground himself that he was out from under their influence.

It was Agent Barton. "_Captain, don't share any vital info, I'm afraid this channel isn't secure anymore."_

So the good Captain was not with his comrades? They had been planning on going to SHIELD…

**_Damn_**. Of course, that was what Doom and Grant had hoped for. Split up the team, and Loki for once had played into the enemies hands perfectly.

Luckily the doctor was submerged in tracking the signals, typing something out of Loki's field of vision. The god instead gauged how dire the situation was based on the Captains voice and not his disappointment that mortals had outsmarted him. "_Affirmative. Don't worry about anything except getting to safety. Contact us when you're out._"

Worry. As always, not for himself. His team was in danger, and from what Loki had gathered from previous transmissions, his brother was not in immediate danger. Agents Natasha and Barton were still in SHIELD, it was something to worry over, for Doom would not just let them go free.

Grant's pleased smile didn't throw Loki off guard; it only served to cement his suspicions.

Did Doom send someone to take care of the agents? How sorry they would be when the infamous Black Widow took them out. Loki had seen her spar, and even Lady Sif would be wise to decline engaging battle with the woman. And Barton was no delicate flower himself.

"_Got it, Widow and Hawk out."_

Grant twisted to glance at his prisoner before shutting the screen off. "As we speak, an army of Doombots are attacking SHIELDs main base. Same operations centre your friends sent Black Widow and Hawkeye. Not so wise."

It was pageantry. Jonathan Grant was nervous. Perhaps Widow and Hawk should have been dead by now, not able to answer their devices. Loki remembered the pulse of energy that had knocked him out not long before, Barton had used such a device strapped to his arrow, to help take the Helicarrier down two years previously.

Communicating should be impossible as Grants irritated demeanor implied. So the Avengers had done the expected- foiled someone's plan.

Remembering that he should be acting the victim, Loki coughs his way into grants perceptions again.

"Yes?" He is not pleased to be interrupted.

Say something about Galton? It would be Loki's pleasure. "Did miss Ryan suspect you? Is that why you chose her over Regina Wells?"

Damn if that wasn't the most pleasant reaction the god had gotten since his fall from the Bifrost.

Grant's eyes held nothing, no mirth, not even anger, only intense nothingness as if his words were so unexpected there was no time to playact.

"She suspected," Grant drawled, careful not to take his attention completely away from the screens in front of him. "Doctor Doom was invested in her cause."

"_Her_ cause? Surely you joined in on her dream of relieving Midgard of war?"

"She was naïve. She believed her technology could combat all forms of war eventually. But us humans here on _Midgard_…" Grant scoffed at the word for his home, "we know it is impossible. War creates money, serves a purpose at a high price. Ryan- Galton," He recovered quickly, and again Loki strained to imagine any look of remorse on the faces for his words were monotone and devoid of care. "Was careless to a fault. Single-minded," Grant pulled up another screen, it seemed something was going on at Stark Tower, there was a blinking red light on the schematics, which Grant did something to remove. The screen returned to its peaceful gold and gray colours of running code. "Selfish… her search for power left her without it."

Power was his motivation. Loki recalled an article Stark's computer had provided for him.

**"Dr. Jonathan Grant, experiments kill three in workplace explosion."**

Grant was stripped of his position, his power of scientific influence.

**_Mortals_**, Loki would never understand them. He knew power, coveted it for the longest time even before the Chitari grabbed control of his ambitions and twisted them so far out of his reach that they could imbue him with their own will.

Grant was of a different purpose. he sought power to destroy, not rule.

"Why does that keep blinking?"

"Tony Stark is trying to get his program running. The A.I."

Loki chose then to act woefully befuddled. "A.I.?"

"Artificial Intelligence. It's a little beyond you, I know," Oh yes, the word for his personality Loki had heard Steve call Tony many times. Grant was being _cocky_. Believing himself above everyone else, and like a parent to a misbehaving child, would eventually explain thinking the child wouldn't understand.

As much mischief as Loki made, he was no child, and so Grant stayed true to Midgardian ritual and _explained,_ "but it's what he calls JARVIS. I turned the A.I. system off, and have locked him into the Iron Man suit." Maniacal laughter didn't suit Grant, but the low timbre of his laugh gave Loki pause.

He had been one step ahead of the Avengers the entire time. One step ahead in every way.

Did he not see his fatal flaw as Loki suddenly did?

"He's trying to get back in. It's child's play… especially with Galton's programs at my hands."

There it was. For all of Grant's posturing, he was still just a bioengineer. Galton's had been the 'brains' handling code running across the screen mirrored in Grant's eyes.

It was borrowed intelligence. He had to have gotten it somewhere, and Loki knew the man was not an imbecile and would have discarded Ryan's original notes. Galton had been a genius, and all geniuses wrote in failsafe's. Selvig had, without even knowing it, a guaranteed way to close the portal the Tesseract had created over New York. It only proved no one had control of one's _entire_ mind, only the worst aspects of it.

It struck Loki, in the odd circle his mind had just made, that Ryan Galton could still be in the machine, aware of what had happened, and was holding back.

It that why Grant looks displeased with the slow progress? The red dot continues to appear.

Loki needed to be _sure_, that was the case before executing what he'd been planning since he first woke. Loki needed to hear what was happening.

Good thing Grant was an imbecile and had left communications up while Stark was _in his suit_.

"_Tony? Iron Man, is there a problem?"_

_"FUCK, this isn't happening. Cap I'm not going anywhere."_

Loki knew it was too good to be true, because something else began to flash across grant's screen.

Transmissions from another site, and on the map it was far from the tower. "_Black Widow to Captain America, do you copy? We're headed your way, thirty minutes."_

It was fortunate the screen was holographic, the desk being upturned and the screen hovering there ominously, lighting the space just beyond Loki's vision. Colours bleed into themselves against grant's lab coat, readouts clearly posing a problem for his plans.

Widow was still speaking, calm and in control. "_Captain, if you can hear me help is on the way."_

"Not for long." Standing amidst the overturned desk and chair, papers and a notebook littering the pristine glossed floor, Grant sideswiped a tab on the screen, pulling up a set of nine numerical numbers in odd categories.

Loki focused on it, ignoring the ringing in his ears Natasha's continued wave created, echoing off the walls. Grant was tapping each sequence of numerals, turning them from a faint red to glaring green.

"Let's see the agents get out of this one."

The tone was too cool and composed in contrast to the deranged man that had raged out at learning Widow and Hawk had escaped whatever he had planned for them.

Once all the sequences were lit up, Grant pressed something else and stood back. Silhouetted against the lights, Grant took on the air of a man desperate for battle and had started a war in the process, reveling in his supposed power.

Loki was acclaimed to striping power from those who deserved no such thing, and his feral grin mirrored one he'd left behind on the Bifrost.

* * *

"Captain, if you can hear me help is on the way." Natasha clutched the radio close to her mouth, adjusting her headset for the fifteenth time since hitting open sky. Clint was pushing the Quinjet to its limits and still it was _not enough_. He just wished she;d quit it with the fidgeting- it wasn't like her and he hated when she did it. how could a man concentrate with the constant movement? It made his skin itch more than it had been at the thought Captain America might be dead.

**_Way to be pessimistic. _**

"Nat… the radio is unreliable." He said it more to calm her than himself.

"You know it's not."

The dark sky gave nothing away, even if it was daylight they were so far above the clouds that land would be impossible to view. The moon was full, making the tops of the clouds shine silver and the inside of the jet ethereal, the only source of light the control panels. This was the perfect place an aircraft could cruise, and Clint would have been enjoying it any other night.

Natasha went to try contacting their team again and stopped halfway through her first word, sitting straighter. The movement caught Clint's eyes, looking over to her catching something in his peripheral from the other side.

It was gliding beside them.

The signature wasn't Iron Man; it didn't have a signature they recognized. The radar did a sweep and nothing came up, not even a viable energy signature or distance.

Natasha was out of her seat, belt unclipped and swinging before Clint could even reach out to stop her.

"Nat, wait!"

Clint knew what it was, and when Natasha opened the back of the jet it revealed four more following in formation behind them, popping out of the clouds in swirling mist before levelling out. Punching the button to raise and lock the hatch, Natasha strapped herself into the co-pilots seat once more, forgetting about her attempts to reach the Captain in lieu of a better alternative- getting to Stark Tower alive.

Taking precaution, Clint switched channels to link directly to the server on Stark Tower, taking the yoke up again and manually switching off autopilot.

Natasha tapped in her code to arm missiles, and Clint felt the clunk of them emerging from their protective pods in the undercarriage. She then took the parallel controller and kept a thumb poised over the button on its hilt.

"Have they locked on?"

Natasha shook her head, they hadn't engaged. "I wish they would- but they're just following."

"Well that's no fun, is it?" Throwing a conspirator look to Natasha. The bots couldn't be allowed follow them to New York.

Nat nodded, and Clint found that peace between accuracy and action, raising the yoke up swiftly, pointing the nose of the jet up until he felt it shake against him, and at that point twisted and lowered it level to his thigh so the jet back flipped over the formation. His decreased speed met with theirs, ending up smoothly flying behind them, gaining speed.

One of the things broke formation, coming up against the belly of the craft with a metallic thunk.

"Clint!"

He knew that tone and engaged the ones still in formation but breaking fast, while Natasha rushed to open the dropping dock where the bot had attached itself- willingly letting it into the jet.

Clint wasted no time in activating what Stark had called "ode to the old days", a missile he had designed only for the Avengers Quinjet in case of emergency.

**_Doombots on my ass qualifies_**, Clint thought before pressing his thumb down into the controller, letting it up with a sigh of contentment. The missile broke apart halfway to its target, igniting in midair before zooming ahead and pinpointing bodily signatures.

It was the type of weaponry that needed no heat signature, one use only.

Now there was only the doombot _inside the fucking jet_ Clint had to worry about. Switching to autopilot, he pulled down his bow from the overhead compartment and slung an arrow so fast it was flying in the air over Natasha's dipping head before autopilot had fully initiated.

The dip in altitude he had counted on, for Natasha had instinctively grabbed for a loose strap to the side, holding herself steady.

The bot had risen a few inches up into the pathway of the arrow, and with a little beeping noise it began counting down.

The bot grabbed Natasha's ankle, pulling her into its crushing arms, her groan and insuring kick threw them both back against the hatch.

Clint reversed his plans of opening the hatch and kicking the thing out before his arrow detonated. He needed to be quick, and his heart pumped blood so fast it was a cascading echo in his ears.

The thing had Natasha_._ _**Fuck me if that's going to happen**__. _Pleading to himself that this would work, Clint yelled at her to grab something and hold on over the crunching of the bot flailing madly into everything it collided with, she jet lilting in the air as it compensated for the movement and weight. Already two steps ahead of him, Natasha was clutching a bundle of straps tied to the side braces holding equipment.

Whistling wind blasted through the aircraft as soon as Clint hit the controls to open the back hatch.

With both bay doors open, the bot's massive body took flight out of the back, dropping from sight until all Clint saw were flecks of dismembered bot shooting in all directions out of a ball of flame. Pieces of metal debris shot into the jet before Clint could close it, one of them embedding itself into the back of the pilot's chair he knelt beside.

The following silence and whirr of the bay doors locking into place was a comfort after almost being shot down by doombots left over from the attacks at SHIELD.

"Nat?"

The jet was righting itself, raising in the air and out of the clouds where it had plummeted.

"Mid-air fight is checked off my bucket list. You?" Her smirk was all the confirmation he got that she was unharmed. She wasn't the type of person to bring attention to the cuts on her arm or where her black suit was ripped in a few places along her torso.

Clint noticed, his eyes couldn't help but roam over her to mentally reassure himself.

Apart from the fright almost losing Natasha to an air-drop, Clint was fine. "I'm golden." He sat himself back into the chair, with Nat settling beside him.

Taking up controls again, Clint flew the rest of the way in silence.

Natasha had given up trying to contact Steve.

* * *

New York announced itself on the horizon in a display of bright lights reflecting against cool Atlantic water, and Stark Tower was easily picked out among the dots of buildings and descending rain clouds.

Dropping onto the top helicopter pad, above any buildings around it, Clint and Natasha stood at the edge.

Not even a cop car in sight on the streets below. The chilled wind blew Natasha's hair into her face and she held it back with a hand, gun ready to be used in her other. The streets were quiet, the disembodied sounds of cars honking floating u to them before being carried off in the quickly picked up wind.

Clint walked over to the door leading down and into the top floor of the tower- what the team called the 'go room', which held equipment and other things they usually grabbed before heading out on a mission.

One of Tony's suits would be in there, and Clint bet everything he owned that if he activated it, JARVIS would answer.

There was just the problem of getting the locked door to open, and repeatedly pulling on it wasn't working. Clint walked back over to Nat, who had crouched down and onto her stomach over the edge of the roof. It was in this exact position she had been two years ago, when Selvig spotted Loki's sceptre, that Natasha got an idea.

"Clint, grab the climbing gear out of the jet."

Her eyes reflected the light around them, and he saw what she did.

The penthouse lights were on, and the burly shadow crossing the balcony couldn't be mistook for anything other than the Hulk.

* * *

**A/N: So, next chapter will have EVERYONE.**

**Nat and Clint are repelling down the side of Stark Tower to hopefully get into it. Thor, Steve and Tony are making an escape to… somewhere. Loki is planning a rescue, sort of. Doom is also up to something. What's going on with Bruce you ask? You'll find out next chapter.**

**Also, I've been asked if I could write a fic after I'm done this one to explain more about Loki being with the Avengers, like a prequel. I'm not opposed, but let's see how this goes first, yes?**

**I'm also going to see Thor 2 in about an hour, so hopefully that'll spur me into writing more.**

**Reviews are nice!**


	12. Only Two Options

**A/N: So I went to go see Thor 2 twice last week. It was amazing. Anyway, this chapter is a little shorter because last week was busy with school and life. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel. It's for the best.**

* * *

_Only Two Options_

Natasha didn't know what she was heading into. This was not the first time she'd gone blind into a mission or dangerous region. This time there was more on the line than precious intel or her own life. Not just the team, but the lives of countless civilians and innocents if Doom were to succeed in his master plan weighed on them succeeding in stopping Anna- there was always a larger plan hidden in the finer details.

"Nat?" Clint was crouched down near the side of the building. She'd set the grips on the ledge, feet planted firmly against the side of the building, not so far yet that she couldn't hear him.

Nor could she pretend she was deaf. "What?" She'd meant to put more bite into her response, because Clint had bad timing and a heart-to-heart wasn't exactly up their alley anyways. Having a 'talk' while she was walking down the side of a very tall building wasn't recommended by SHIELD or themselves.

Clint kept it short. "Be careful." The wind almost carried the words away, and even if they had, Natasha always knew what Clint wanted to say, sometimes before he did. She had spent enough time looking into his eyes to know every variation, every command, every silent tell.

Natasha nodded, curt, eyes tight. "Like you have to tell me twice." She let some slack off, dropping smoothly a few feet before tapering off the line and planting her feet down again. She began taking measured leaps; the cord rubbing against leather-clad hands the only sound apart from drifting car honks and New York night life below.

Clint stood, watching her propel down until she hit Stark's landing pad used to disassemble the Iron Man suit. "Sometimes I _do_." He kept his eyes on her and she unharnessed, the glow from the penthouse illuminating only one side of her, the rest in contrasted moonlight. She kept her body flush against the glass, and when the door didn't open, Clint crouched again.

He saw clearly her moment of confusion, and her body tense up.

There were shadows working their way across the pad, long and menacing before dropping off into the air, lost in the lights of the streets reaching up to meet them.

Whatever had walked across the penthouse, Clint knew it was nothing good.

He knew a lot about his partner, and as soon as he saw the determination set in her shoulders and the way her hand curled around the guns she'd slowly drawn, he sighed.

Natasha Romanoff always had two approaches to a situation; she would pick one and stick with it no matter what. She didn't believe in luck or chance, or odds.

_"One, know you're getting out. Two, know you're not, and don't bother with hope, just take everyone you can with you so others can succeed." _Clint could hear those clearer than bells like she'd just said them. They'd been winding down after a mission, sparring to let off a little steam. It had been only the second time they'd worked together after Clint spared her life, gone against his orders. He didn't know much about her at the time and honestly was afraid to. Once he'd heard that, he knew she'd be a good partner. She never second guessed, always took any opportunity to turn things around- but never despaired knowing that sometimes things didn't work out. She never lingered on possibilities, only using what knowledge was available to her.

A baleful wind blew past him, centering him in the present. Clint watched the door open, but he stepped back shortly afterwards. He kept his eyes on the skies, on lookout for other doombots he had a chance of shooting down before they made contact.

They'd decided he was to stay on the roof- the jet was their only escape plan, and if doombots did appear, he was the better marksman. Knowing this, Clint drew an explosive arrow, knocking it against his bow, taking sights on anything that moved along the skyline.

Clint pretended the sudden echo of gunfire booming overtop the city was worlds away, and not the familiar shots of two Glock 26's from the woman who'd walked in there expecting not to walk out.

It was the second round of gunfire that caught Clint's attention, these were not warning shots. He paused and for a few second hearing nothing other than his steady heartbeat. The silence was so encompassing that when the gunfire stopped, and a bright light surrounded the edges of the rooftop, Clint thought they were doombots dropping unexpected from straight above him.

Glass blowing apart, piercing the eerie white silence after the burst of light, spurred him to the edge in time to see the girl, Anna, falling and falling. He spotted her hitting the pavement, but before his sigh of relief reached his throat, she got up and was running.

"Shit,"

Clint grabbed a hold on the rope after securing his bow to its quiver on his back, secured it to his waist and jumped. Glass still fell towards the ground, but the archer was more concerned with the_ lack_ of movement inside the penthouse.

"Natasha!"

* * *

The door wouldn't budge. Natasha laid a hand against the panel at the side and pushed in slightly in a last attempt to get the panel to slide open and accept her security code. Still nothing.

The penthouse lights were up, the room looking per usual for that time of night. There was an empty scotch glass left on the bar, and down the steps a pair of heels tucked neatly beside the wall where Stark's spare Iron Man suit could be deployed in case of emergency. The fireplace was burning, low but bright, casting flickers of light over the stone floor.

A pair of Bruce's glasses was on the coffee table, a mug of what Natasha assumed had been coffee beside it.

The one thing that shouldn't have been there was the body, shirtless and shaking beside the hole in the wall that the elevator doors used to occupy. They'd been ripped from their hinges, cast away to the sides to lie in dust.

From in the elevator shaft…

Natasha squared her shoulders upon laying eyes on Anna, clothed in sleepwear and barefoot climbing up from the elevator, spread like a spider on the floor before gracefully standing. The woman was more than a little bruised, and Natasha couldn't help the grin on her face that Thor had obviously been at her.

**_They let her go?_**

Anna saw Natasha's cold smile and drawn guns, walking over towards the door to the landing pad. There was no prideful gait, nor anything to show she'd killed the rest of the team. Anna was curious, emotionless eyes locked on the Black Widow as she made her approach.

With a series of numbers imputed into the lock pad on the inside, Anna stepped quickly back when Natasha opened the door.

Black Widow didn't wait; she opened fire, stalking Anna towards the lift.

Passing, she spared a glance to Bruce, who gave a low moan at the sudden noise of gunfire, still not moving.

Anna calmly took the bullets, back to the dark elevator shaft, seemingly not caring that with one swift kick she would plummet forty stories. The mischievous glint in her eyes made Widow stop her assault, her two handguns her only barrier between them.

"What did you do?"

It seemed to robot was open to talk, and Natasha would be a poor host if she didn't oblige her guest.

"**What needed to be done, Agent. Your team is alive."** There was a catch in that sentence, Natasha knew, but deigned not to let Anna know it.

"And Dr. Banner?" She flicked her gun over to him on the floor where he was slowly becoming more alert; his whisper of Natasha's name at least told her he was coherent enough to know she was there saving his ass.

"**Be thankful he is merciful, or else I would have killed the beast.**"

**_If banner is the beast, who is the guy she mentioned?_**

Natasha knew she stood no chance against Anna, which made her next move easier considering she didn't expect to get out alive. With an inward step, Natasha caught Anna around the neck with her crooked elbow, other hand coming up to the robots temple.

In seconds, Natasha was emptying the gun clip into the things head while it screeched, instinctively hands cold and strong as metal clamped around Natasha's throat even as it was being pelted with rounds, the knock of bullets rattling against its metal head.

Blinding white light burst from a point on Anna's body Natasha couldn't see. The light was too bright coming through her closed eyes, thrown back by a surge of energy that blast the windows out in a crash of glass.

Natasha hit the edge of the fireplace, rolling into the side of the leather couch in time before shards of glass embedded themselves into her body. The wind knocked out of her, frozen from shock and the electricity surging through her veins, Natasha saw Anna give a second glance to her and Bruce before springing away and into the night air, illuminated for a few seconds by the city lights before plummeting down.

In a daze Natasha realized she began crawling towards Bruce, still confused enough not even the Other Guy made an appearance to save Bruce from shards of enforced glass. Pieces embedded into the scientist's back and left arm, Natasha began tugging them out, tossing the bloody shards aside. She turned Bruce over gently, huffing at the exertion it took, dully noticing the growing headache and her arms losing feeling, lead heavy.

Through the echoes and screams in the streets below from civilians that just scrambled in shock from a woman falling from Stark tower, Natasha heard Clint's voice yelling to her from somewhere she couldn't see.

"Banner?" She put a hand to his throat; he was alive, eyes semi-open and staring at the ceiling through pupils one larger than the other.

"Nat!?" Clint's voice was closer, stronger than she remembered. Everything was beating against her heartbeat, the buzz of lights and her breath competing for attention. Trying to shake it off, she sat up, black suit covered in specks of glass looking like small diamonds. She felt them rubbing together in her hair, and a huge pressure building in her head.

A drop of blood fell onto her leg, fingers coming up on their own and feeling the warm blood dripping from her nose and ears. Her hands ran frantically over herself, noticing they weren't just her hands any longer.

"Clint." Her voice was weaker than she liked. The lights brighter, her heartbeat slowing. "Clint, Banner needs,"

His face was close. "Bruce is fine." As if his words were prophecy, Bruce slowly sat up behind them, head bowed but breathing. "Where'd… where is Anna?"

Clint's hard voice matched his eyes, "She ran away."

Natasha heard the hazed tremor of helicopter beats from somewhere in the distance. The feelings in her arms slowly came back to her, and her light push on Clint's shoulder effectively had the archer standing. She nodded at him, and with that small assurance she was alright, he took the stairwell exit to search for the rest of their team.

Bruce halted him by saying, "Start with medical level twenty-one… last place I know they were." The doctor winced, going unnoticed by Natasha occupied staring at the blood still dripping slowly from her nose in plops.

Bruce threw her an appreciative look. "Natasha-"

"Don't mention it." It came too quick, like she had already been thinking about how close a call that had been.

He pressed, "You just shot through a robots skull, while in close range. So thank you," If it had been anyone other than a teammate giving her that kind of look, she would have used the rest of her waning strength to punch them. **_This is Bruce_**, whose glasses had been lost out the window and coffee mug broken in white porcelain pieces. "Anyti-"

Even the inclosing helicopter blades whirring in the air so close to landing on the roof couldn't block out what came through her earpiece, no longer just white noise. A long beep so loud she had to remove it, tossing it to Bruce.

Firing off her gun so close to her ears had done damage enough it hurt too much to listen to the comm link.

It was news. From what Natasha gathered by Bruce's hardened expression it wasn't good. He relayed it in flat words, staring out the glass-less windows at two more helicopters appearing silhouetted against the weak sunrise. "Tony and Thor are alive. Steve is severely injured."

Steve could survive basically anything. He was encased in ice for nearly seventy years, what could injure a super-soldier? "How bad?"

Bruce's expression changed from one of tight worry to confused relief.

"SHIELD is here." It ended like a question. Natasha suspected he was wondering why they'd taken so long, and would recount Doom's attack on SHIELD once they were together with their team.

The easing of helicopter blades left a bland silence in the wake of a fast fight, sucking all of Natasha's leftover adrenaline out of her to leave behind a question her pounding head was only letting her contemplate then.

**_Why did Anna let us live?_**

* * *

**A/N: I know its super short for what I usually post, so sorry. Next chapter will be longer, and with more Loki.**

**For those of you following Culprits of Action, there will be an update either tonight or tomorrow.**

**Have a lovely day/evening/night!**


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